


The Ashes in Your Wake

by unknown_knowns



Series: To Make a Life Worth Living [2]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Drama, Drug Use, Drugs, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationship, F/F, Hangover, Magic, Mystery, Party, S1 replacement fic, Supernatural Elements, and jefferson is not a creepy psycho, diverges from canon because rachel lives and is in a dedicated relationship with chloe, just a tryhard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-08-03 16:01:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16329137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknown_knowns/pseuds/unknown_knowns
Summary: Rachel is meant to do something in this world - she just knows it.After one eventful night, she finds out she was right, but now she just needs to find out what she's meant to do about it.Little does she know, she's not the only one who is chosen, albeit for different reasons.There are many secrets in Arcadia Bay, and none take to being revealed too well.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just couldn't not continue on with Rachel living after "Friend, Make Sense of Me". While this story is superficially similar (if you squint) to my ["Seattleverse"](https://archiveofourown.org/series/557492), they will actually focus on very different things, with the only thing being constant the ships and the fact that they're both S1 replacement fics.
> 
> Feel free to leave comments! I'll try to respond to each and every one of them.

It was Friday night, and that meant a Vortex Club party was underway.

For most people on campus, these were aspirational sorts of things to attend – signs of how far they had progressed socially, and what their clout was becoming, were they able to get in – especially to the VIP section.

For Rachel Amber, this wasn’t even a consideration, really, her place in the club was effectively guaranteed by way of her popularity.

For Chloe Price, this wasn’t even a consideration, really, since who cares about that sort of crap.

When they entered the large stadium filled with all manner of people and objects – thick the smell of weed, heavy and loud the bass of the music – it was all just very whatever and of-course.

Rachel walking with Chloe’s arm around her shoulder was normal.

Rachel greeting some more casual friends out in the non-exclusive zone of the party was normal.

Chloe kinda enjoying the music and weed readily available but not so much all the socializing was normal.

Even Rachel feeding a few beers to Chloe – not that she wouldn’t get them of their own initiative – so that she’d loosen up enough to be able to handle all the bullshit that came with the VIP lounge.

But there was very something not-normal about all of this, despite the familiar patterns coming out in familiar ways: Chloe was unusually distracted when Rachel did her socializing – eyes darting to anywhere but what was being discussed, contributions to the conversation being little more than confirmations if asked anything directly, barely even paying attention.

Rachel even saw her reading the nutrition info on her beer bottle once or twice.

Some of this was easily understandable, since Rachel’s friends weren’t exactly all Chloe’s friends, even if most of them had warmed up to Chloe in the years they’d been dating, now, but Chloe would at least usually bark a few things out just to avoid being bored out of her mind.

But it was clear she had something else to think about, and Rachel kind of hated the fact she knew exactly what it was.

 

Chloe took a chug of her beer.

Usually after two or six she found the entire party much more tolerable.

She was on number three now, and things were a little soft and fuzzy around the edges, but she knew she needed a bit more than usual tonight.

Her thoughts had already been a bit spiraling about a certain thing.

The same thing that made Rachel seriously consider intervening with Chloe’s relationships and force something, which is squarely something she would have never even considered to do before.

 

Max Caulfield, Chloe’s long-estranged friend, was back in town.

And she wasn’t saying a peep to Chloe.

Chloe had basically worked through her anxieties and woes with Max’s abandonment already – Rachel was helpful to that end, stabilizing – but found them all sort of crashing back into her life when Max was so close physically, just somewhere on campus – literally across the hall from Rachel’s dorm.

All she had to do was fucking knock.

But then again, all she had to do prior was pick up the fucking phone, and she couldn’t even manage that.

Ugh.

Chloe knew she couldn’t always contain the resentment, even if to what extent Max deserved it she didn’t know.

She took another chug of her beer.

“You think she’s here?”

Chloe didn’t even have to specify who.

They both knew.

Rachel sighed at this, a bit wearily, but it was nice to at least get this out of the way early.

They had finished the early socializing by now, just getting drunk and hanging out before the real fun started, where ever it wasn’t particularly crowded.

Rachel then smirked and took a sip of her beer.

“Max? At a party? Yeah, sure. Obviously. I bet she’s dancing right now. Probably making out with some strangers.”

It had to come at a near-shout because of the party’s music, but they could still communicate.

Unlike Chloe, who needed to drink a lot before they even stepped on the dance floor, Rachel preferred to space out her drinks a bit more until they were actually partying.

Chloe groaned and rolled her eyes but did appreciate the sarcastic playfulness all the same.

Still.

“Rach, come on, I’m being serious.”

She certainly sounded like it.

Rachel’s smile cracked a bit, since this could be a problem for the rest of the night if Chloe wouldn’t lighten up.

So she got a bit closer and placed a hand on Chloe’s shoulder to try and give her some physical comfort, a language Chloe appreciated very much.

“Okay, okay. Just – no. She’s probably not here. So you can stop thinking about her for once and just enjoy yourself.”

She thought to add a playful and flirty ‘and enjoy _me_ ’, but bit it back for tone appropriateness.

Chloe briefly looked at Rachel’s hand and groaned again, slouching and her eyes going off to some other part of the party.

“Ugh. If only it was that easy.”

Rachel’s smile regained its strength at this.

The same hand on Chloe’s shoulder went down to her hand to squeeze her hand lovingly, affirmingly.

“I know, I know. The total lack of any communication is killing you. It’d kill me, too.”

Chloe’s eyes went back to her, and she shared a brief smile for a bit before evening out her expression.

Being understood always felt nice, even if her problem wasn’t exactly hard to suss out.

“Yeah, exactly. I can’t believe she hasn’t said a word to me. Not even a ‘hi’.”

Rachel squeezed Chloe’s hand again before removing it and crossing her arms.

“Right?”

Small sigh.

“Radio silence does seem to be her style, though. One more week isn’t surprising after five years of it …”

Chloe frowned and grunted.

“Don’t remind me.”

That number stabbed her brain a few times as Max’s radio silence continued.

Five years.

Five whole years.

Chloe had completely changed as a person, gone through so much in that time – because five years is a long fucking time.

Maybe some parts of Chloe felt worry over maybe Chloe herself causing the radio silence like – maybe she said the wrong thing, expected too much of Max, or whatever – but she’d talked this over with Rachel a few times.

Rachel had friends she left, too.

She didn’t exactly cut them out of her life for good.

Chloe couldn’t imagine doing this to anyone, period.

Max could _at least_ talk to her every once in a while, but – she didn’t.

She didn’t even have to be this amazingly close friend if she didn’t want to be – it wouldn’t feel amazing, but at least she’d still be around.

Rachel sighed a bit more sadly as she observed Chloe.

It really wasn’t easy to watch Chloe start to slip away and become unvarnished whenever she thought of Max, and she thought of Max a lot, this week.

Rachel just wanted this whole thing to be done with, but she didn’t want to force something that might result in a very sad Chloe – if for example they went over there and more-or-less demanded an explanation, and Max simply didn’t care.

Most parts of Rachel told her that’s not how that conversation would happen, now; she’d spoken to the girl a few times, and never felt a contemptuous bone in her body.

Nervous and shy to the point of farce, sure, but she didn’t seem like the kind of person who would want to actively hurt Chloe.

So why was she?

The obvious answer – that she had moved on and didn’t think of Chloe anymore – was the most tempting one, but not one she wanted to fully grapple with unless she had to.

Ugh.

Now even she was starting to feel her mood dip, as it often did when Chloe brought this stuff up.

Rachel needed a distraction.

She slammed the rest of her beer and shook her head.

 

“Fuck it. If she’s here, she’s one of many. Let’s go have some _real_ fun.”

 

Chloe found this pretty compelling, now, mirroring the gesture by finishing off her beer in one equally-impressive swig.

“Yeah. Fuck it.”

Rachel smiled and walked right in front of Chloe to give her a brief but affectionate kiss, and then took her hand to lead her deeper into the party – away from the loud bass music and towards the VIP section.

Though, Chloe did that cute thing she often did when being led by speeding up a bit so they were walking side-by-side and playing with Rachel’s hand with her fingers while they walked.

 

Unfortunately, though, if the plan was to distract away from thinking of Max, they both got a rude awakening when they got past the bouncer – effortlessly – and started walking into the VIP section.

Victoria Chase, the sort-of leader of this whole event, and her clique, ever loyal, always occupied this couch thing near the entrance, where they would themselves drink, socialize, and get high on whatever drug the night called for before beginning the real partying.

The member slots of that clique were pretty fiercely competed for and therefore guarded, but tonight, of all nights, there was a new addition on the couch.

Right next to Victoria – who herself would be enough to somewhat tank their moods due to her dogged determination to do anything she could to make their lives more miserable – was Max.

Max.

This new addition was clearly what the group was focusing on, and for good reason, since it was hard to imagine a more jarring image than Max in her not-at-all-trying attire right next to the well-dressed and bougie members of the club.

But what she was doing was even _more_ jarring.

 

She was fucking making out with Victoria fucking Chase.

 

Victoria, alone, would be disturbing.

Max, alone, would be disturbing.

Them together?

It was frankly hard for Chloe to imagine a more visceral sort of betrayal.

Not _only_ did Max ghost her –

Not _only_ did Max come back and _still_ ghost her –

Not _only_ did Max make new friends here while still not talking to her –

Not _only_ did Max apparently manage to talk to Rachel, if a bit awkwardly –

Here she was, making out with enemy number one.

Chloe’s brain was aflush with confusing thoughts, but Rachel rightfully started tugging Chloe along closer to the dance floor, to expedite the process of distracting away from this image that was likely seared into both of their minds for the foreseeable future.

“Ugh.”

Of course, symbolic of everything, Max didn’t even notice the two had entered.

 

Chloe couldn’t get another beer in her hand fast enough.

But as she drank and started to gently dance with Rachel – an activity that itself took a long time for her to accept doing – her thoughts weren’t all awful.

Maybe it was the beer.

Maybe it was the music.

Maybe it was the adrenaline that she felt when dancing.

Maybe it was Rachel’s pleasant and distracting smile.

Choe didn’t know, but the initial visceral shock and betrayal started to wear off and be replaced with more nuanced and of course conflicted thoughts.

This was the clearest evidence yet that Max had moved on and didn’t care about Chloe anymore.

And that’s … kind of what Chloe thought had happened, anyway?

Chloe already knew that Max wasn’t really her friend anymore, after five whole years, and even if she knew she would have probably taken Max back – before this whole Victoria thing – she’d kinda accepted that fact and moved on herself.

She felt like she had closure about this, with Rachel in her life, her basically-wife, long committed to see the rest of their lives together.

Max had moved on.

She wasn’t her friend.

And Chloe was okay with that.

The only reason this hurt now is she’d gotten into her dumb head to unlearn what she already knew, and maybe, just maybe, that somehow, after all of this time, Max would still want to be her friend, somehow.

Maybe life hadn’t yet beaten this eternal hope out of her.

Maybe it wouldn’t ever.

But here it was, yet one more example of it burning her – if she didn’t get her hopes up and just treated Max like she knew her to be, this would be whatever.

Max was someone else.

So was Chloe.

 

When Chloe finished this beer, she got a more loving and longer kiss from Rachel, with an equally loving embrace.

They then stopped to look very seriously at each other.

Rachel’s hands went to Chloe’s shoulders.

Often, talking was not necessary between them to convey emotions, and now was one such time, all the more convenient since, yeah, party, loud.

Rachel’s eyes scanned Chloe’s face to see if she was – okay.

How poorly Chloe responded to this new revelation would have to determine how much Rachel layered on the girlfriend mode to try and smooth this all out.

At least it didn’t mean as much for Rachel to see Max doing what she was doing, and only verified that they had done the right thing in not forcing an awkward conversation.

One of Rachel’s eyebrows went up.

A question without a word.

Chloe shrugged a bit.

Her expression became neutral, and not that troubled.

Her eyes went down to one of Rachel’s hands, as if distracted, and one of her hands came up to gently play with Rachel’s hand again – an activity neither ever tired of, nor it did it ever stop being endearing to Rachel.

Rachel moved her head forward a bit and nudged at Chloe’s forehead to refocus her attention.

Chloe’s eyes went back up.

Rachel’s other eyebrow went up.

Chloe returned the honest look.

Rachel smiled.

Chloe smiled.

Rachel, satisfied, then giggled and tilted her head forward just that tiny distance left for another kiss as her hands came up to play with some of Chloe’s hair near her ears.

Chloe, of course, enjoyed being kissed, and when _that_ was done, Rachel moved her lips over to Chloe’s ear to playfully but gently bite and talk into it – half because it made talking easier, half because it was fun.

“Let me know if you need to bail. I’m here for you.”

Chloe nodded and sighed gently, running her hands over Rachel’s sides.

“I’m fine. Just thinking … again.”

Rachel nodded herself and separated with a small giggle.

“Don’t hurt yourself. I’ll go get us more beer.”

While this was very playful in nature, Rachel also meant it earnestly; Chloe had some … difficult moods sometimes, where she just got stuck in her head and made everything worse.

Rachel intended to run that off before it even started, tonight, but it required a bit more an escape than usual.

Chloe didn’t mind Rachel doing this, leaving her – even if it left her kinda alone - since she was going back to the couch for supplies.

And Chloe didn’t want to think about what was on the couch.

So she didn’t.

Chloe turned around, instead, looking at the DJ and some other random people who had managed to claw an invitation into here and were already partying.

This … this is what she should be thinking about.

She was at a party.

She was getting drunk.

She was going to party with her girlfriend.

She didn’t have to be that sad moping asshole, anymore.

She didn’t have to be the girl that waited five years for one friend to make one call.

Not anymore.

Not with Rachel in her life.

Despite it all, Chloe smiled gently, seeing the genuine entertainment the people dancing ahead of her had.

It’s not as though partying was her home, or this is at all what she thought she would be doing with her life, but it was hard to say she was uncomfortable here, either, or that what was about to happen was unpleasant.

Really, the worst part was talking to people, and Rachel usually did all of the talking anyway …

 

Eventually, Rachel slid up behind Chloe.

Her arms smoothly came around to embrace her – one hand obviously holding two beers, one of which Chloe effortlessly stole.

The other hand, though …

It had something special.

That had came up to show Chloe’s eyes what it held, clasped carefully between some fingers: a little tablet, stamped with a tiny little icon of a bulldog.

Chloe sighed contently and looked away while Rachel’s face came close to her ear again, feeling the gentle exhaling cascading down the side of her head.

Chloe thought she recognized it, since that icon was Frank’s.

“Molly?”

Rachel nodded, gently.

“If you want it.”

Rachel’s hands twirled the little tablet around while Chloe wondered if she did, in fact, want it.

Molly sounded pretty good about now, and it would make dancing even more enjoyable – especially if they were handsy, which they always were when they danced.

Chloe could still remember … parts … of Rachel’s 18th birthday and how fucking amazing it felt then to be on drugs and feel just everything Rachel had to offer – every touch, every giggle, every breathless sound, even her nails and moans.

She closed her eyes to relive it a bit.

Sensing Chloe’s hesitation, Rachel nudged at Chloe’s ear and made a gentle – as gentle as it could be, given the background noise – thoughtful sound.

Chloe blinked her eyes open and looked over to her.

Rachel smiled.

“I won’t if you don’t. But it’d be – fun, y’know. Help to forget about – yeah.”

Chloe smiled, herself.

She then looked forward and shook her head a little.

“I don’t need it to forget Max, Rach.”

That felt genuine, or mostly, anyway.

Chloe’s free hand moved to the tablet and instead of accepting it into her own, she guided the hand closer to her lips.

“But I want it to – feel, _you_.”

Rachel smiled so wide and giggled some as she moved the hand to Chloe’s lips and fed it to her.

Chloe closed her eyes and kept her grip on Rachel’s hand, not letting it move away afterwards so that she could kiss it and affectionately stroke it.

“I love you.”

 

But that’s about when the night started to get really blurry.

Rachel took some drugs herself.

Chloe had enough beers to lose the count, and so did Rachel, now that they were properly partying.

They started dancing and feeling and living and –

Chloe forgot about everything, in the moment, everything but the only thing that mattered, anymore.

Rachel.

Chloe didn’t even care when members from the couch started to join them on the dance floor, especially since Max and Victoria weren’t among them.

This was her life, and she was living it, and she didn’t feel like a pathetic mopey fuckup for once.

All because of Rachel.

It wasn’t really a surprise that Victoria and Max didn’t join them, since Victoria did not often party with them – for some self-evident reasons – and that was just fine.

 

It was generally a rule: no recording after the party really started.

As a consequence, almost no one remembered exactly what happened that night, whose fingers went where, what excitably but probably stupid things they all did.

But it was never really the nights that were the problems.

 

It was the morning after.

 

\---

 

Chloe was a creature of suffering.

Every thought came only with intense indifference and slowly beleaguered through the fog in her mind.

However late in the morning it was, it wasn’t late enough.

Her head slumped over and she opened her eyes to check where she was and –

Smirked just a bit.

Her bra was on Rachel’s nightstand, covering up her clock, so that was pointless to look at.

Appropriate.

The only time Rachel didn’t whine about Chloe tossing her clothes to some random part of the room.

Chloe’s head went the other way to see who else but Rachel, just as naked as her, and Chloe smiled a bit more just more out of instinct than anything else.

Being hungover … sucked.

But hungover snuggles?

That was fine.

Rachel’s hair was all messed up and her makeup was running, but Chloe was so beyond caring at this point.

She kissed the top of Rachel’s head and resnuggled into her, melting into her front, until every inch of their bodies were in contact and intertwined in the most intimate of ways possible.

Chloe remembered bits and pieces of last night and replayed some of them in her mind.

Thoughts of Max were there, but – only of the only upshots of being hungover is Chloe flatly did not care about that … for now.

She’d worry about all that bullshit later.

For now – snuggle the girlfriend.

Chloe flirted with sleep and fell in and out of consciousness as their morning ticked by.

 

By lunch time, they were up, regrettably.

The only thing that outpaced Chloe’s laziness was her hunger, so it would be impossible to put off for too long.

Rachel planned out today as a sort of lazy one, too – take care of some homework, socialize a bit about the party, maybe visit a friend or two, but the majority of the day was going to be hanging out with Chloe at the junkyard.

The junkyard was important to them for a lot of reasons.

For Chloe, it was really the only place she could truly let go and unwind, since while Rachel’s dorm room was something she could enjoy, it also had the vague bullshit threat of her step-dad busting in at any point in time for any reason.

That particular relationship was strained, and Rachel didn’t want to give them any more reasons to be at each other’s throats.

Plus, Chloe smoked a lot of weed – more than it seemed she could logically afford, even – and Rachel did _not_ want her room smelling like a pot pipe, both for pragmatic reasons and to avoid any trouble with the principal.

And while it was a junkyard, full of well, junk, Chloe managed to be surprisingly resourceful with what was there.

Not only did she make a home away from home by way of a little cozy clubhouse, but she even managed to find a truck and – more impressively – fix it up into working condition.

Rachel saw the truck as a combination of a death trap and enticing freedom, but Chloe’s resourcefulness only endeared Rachel to her all the more.

So it’s not as though they’d be sitting in the literal scrap metal junk, even if Rachel found Chloe doing that a few times, since Chloe apparently just did not care.

Either way, it was a thing, and Rachel had to play a balancing act to juggle all the balls in her life to make this all work.

This largely meant giving Chloe basically every second of free time she could – so she felt appropriately loved – and optimizing the other time she had away from her as efficiently as possible.

So spending a majority of the day at the junkyard wasn’t even unusual, especially if Rachel could catch up on homework or do a little practice with Chloe just kind of there, sometimes helping, sometimes just watching her like the gay dork she was.

But there was something else, today, and Rachel wanted to have a good chunk of time dedicated to Chloe today especially, since she was worried about her going off and getting lost in her head again with the new revelations about Max.

 

Eventually, Rachel could see Chloe was lost in her head.

Sigh.

She put her book down, since they were idly snuggling on some couch in the clubhouse.

By now it was afternoon? Rachel wasn’t paying too much attention, and they were both a little high.

It was probably time to smoke some more, even, since Rachel was feeling quite lucid.

“Something on your mind?”

Of course there was.

Chloe sighed herself, placing her head on Rachel’s shoulder and kind of shrugged.

“I dunno. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

It wasn’t so much not trusting Rachel – which Chloe absolutely did, with her heart and soul and very life – but … ugh.

Chloe really just didn’t want to think about it, even if she knew she had just spent like an hour thinking about it, since what else was she going to think about.

Rachel rolled her eyes a little.

“Bullshit. You totally do.”

It came out pretty breezily and playfully, and Chloe smiled a bit, despite everything.

She had an amused huff.

“… maybe a little. Okay.”

Chloe pushed herself up to look more clearly at Rachel, and Rachel turned her head to do much the same.

Chloe cracked her neck and stretched a little, since they had been couchlocked for a while, now.

“Uhm. It’s more Max bullshit.”

Rachel nodded.

“I figured. How ‘ya holding up?”

Chloe’s eyes went down, to seemingly nothing, while she thought.

Maybe the worst thing about this is Chloe didn’t know how to feel.

Even worse, she didn’t even know how she _should_ feel.

Good thing to vocalize.

“I … I have no clue. I feel like I should be – upset, or … something. Insulted?”

Her eyes went up to Rachel.

“Like, c’mon, it’s _Victoria_.”

Rachel nodded.

“Hard to imagine a worse person to hook up with.”

Chloe groaned and raised both of her hands to hide her face, sort of playfully exaggerated.

“Ughhhh. Don’t remind me about that.”

Rachel giggled a little, and Chloe was smiling too when her hands went down.

Still, Chloe continued.

“But at the same time, she’s like – not really my friend. She hasn’t been for a long time. We’re different people now.”

She shrugged.

“I probably shouldn’t care about this at all.”

Rachel hummed thoughtfully.

“But you do.”

Chloe’s eyes went down again in their thought.

“I guess so. And it’s – ugh. I shouldn’t have even got my hopes up she might want to reconnect.”

Despite everything, Rachel smiled and placed a hand on Chloe’s shoulder, rubbing it affectionately and being no less endeared when one of Chloe’s hands silently went up to join it and play with Rachel’s hand in turn.

Like she was anticipating it.

“The Chloe I know and love never stops hoping. Even when it’s very silly for her to do so. But it’s a strength – it’s what makes you, you. I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

They both smiled warmly, genuinely.

Chloe kept thinking, now blushing a little.

“Oh, stop …”

Rachel giggled and lean towards Chloe to give her a brief kiss and stare at her intimately afterwards.

Chloe finally returned eye contact.

“Well that makes one of us, at least.”

Kiss.

“Love you too.”

Rachel just kept on smiling, smiling, smiling.

“Plus, now, we know for certain how she thinks. So. Fuck her.”

Chloe raised an eyebrow.

“Shouldn’t you take her to dinner first?”

Rachel giggled and rolled her eyes.

“Dork.”

Chloe smirked.

“Your dork.”

Rachel sighed contently.

“My dork.”

Another kiss, which evolved into a series of kisses, but not into making out.

Giggling, Rachel pulled away and brought her book back up.

“Okay, okay, kiss vampire. Let me read.”

She _did_ want to get through this book, after all.

Chloe groaned and whined and pouted but by now had learned that only worked about … half the time, and Rachel’s eyes weren’t even on her, which is when she was most compelling.

So she gave up pretty quickly.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah …”

Grumbling, she found a pot pipe and started to pack it, similarly feeling she needed more.

“Y’know, I have a terrible girlfriend. Won’t even make out with me.”

Rachel rolled her eyes again.

“Maybe you should get a new one.”

Chloe huffed.

“Maybe I should. But – maybe you could make it up to me?”

Rachel hummed flatly.

“I’m listening.”

Chloe brought up the pot pipe.

“Gimmie a light with your ridiculous fire magic?”

Rachel groaned in annoyance even if Chloe was clearly joking and being playful with this, putting her book down again and shooting her a dirty look, which only made Chloe giggle.

“ _Chloe_. How many times are you going to use that dumb joke? You know that’s not how it works.”

Rachel raised her hand up,

“You _know_ I can’t just – make it happen, there has to be … something –“

She waved it, intending to prove a point, but instead …

 

A little fire burned on the pot pipe, conveniently.

 

They both stopped dead and looked at the fire.

Rachel just trailed off, keeping her maw gaping in surprise, and Chloe kept blinking, as if disbelieving.

 

“… uh.”

 

While this was plainly surprising on the face of it, there were actually more reasons they didn’t expect this to happen.

Rachel had … some … sort of connection with nature that they didn’t fully understand.

Some years ago now she started a positively crazy fire that burned basically the entire forest, and they’ve had smatterings of much smaller incidents.

But with all these incidents – such as another, smaller fire Rachel started during her 18th when she was experimenting with drugs – they weren’t controlled.

It was like her emotions were exerting themselves, manifesting in a very real and unsubtle way, and the greater the emotion, the more powerful the effect.

But the bar for this was … impractically high to be useful, since genuinely upsetting Rachel to the point she could start a fire was just bad for her mental health, and it’s not like she had a lot in her life to get that emotional for.

 

So this.

 

This was big.

 

They both just kinda stared at it wordlessly for a good few seconds while they both thought along similar lines.

Quiet.

Suddenly, they both stood up simultaneously, facing each other and immediately grasping at each other’s hands and staring into each other’s eyes, scanning each other’s expression for of-course similar expressions of shock, but also intrigue.

Whence they confirmed the other was on the same page, without words, the words then came, hurried and disjointed -

“Jesus, Rach, did you –“

“- Of _course_ I did, you –“

“- We gotta –“

“- I know!”

“C’mon, c’mon – c’mon!”

There was no time to wait.

Only time to do.

Hurriedly, still holding at least some part of the other, the two left the clubhouse and immediately separated when they did to start searching.

This called for some science, and in order to do science, one needs a test subject.

Chloe was much more … Chloe when it came time to searching for stuff, seemingly automatically going to one of the many dozens of piles of trash around them to dig around for something.

Rachel kinda wished Chloe did less of that, but at least she was handling junky metal and parts, and not actual trash-trash.

Still, when Rachel started going through one of the piles herself, she decided to manipulate all of the pieces through the fabric of her overshirt.

Just … in case.

But Chloe’s motivated, dogged searching far outpaced Rachel’s more tepid one, and soon Chloe made an excited, victorious sound.

“Ah – yeah, I knew it! Got it.”

Rachel looked up from her pile – unconsciously wiping her hands together, though nothing had befallen them – smiling a bit at her girlfriend’s attitude.

Chloe seemed so excited when she found whatever she did – standing up straight, turning right around, then tossing it into the air so she could snatch it out of the sky as it fell down to the floor.

Then, she smirked, and looked at Rachel.

“Check it.”

Her hand extended, offering the object – a towel, of some sort, a little tattered, but otherwise, quite perfect, as it would certainly be flammable.

Rachel quickly made her way over to Chloe to examine the towel – mostly with her eyes some more – which only confirmed earlier suspicions, since this looked like something that would only find use in life as tinder, anymore.

“This looks good.”

She smiled, then crossed her arms, nodding to the pile Chloe found it on,

“Put it on that pile over there and let’s have some fun.”

Chloe looked behind herself to where she had just been and the pile, and she hesitated before scoffing, looking back to Rachel.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to do it in the forest? Preferably next to some nice big fuck-off tree?”

Rachel groaned so loudly, painfully at the reminder, thoughtlessly shoving at Chloe’s shoulder – albeit in a playful way, and shaking her head.

Chloe was never any less proud of herself for this teasing joke, no matter how often she referenced the first time Rachel’s fire powers made themselves known.

“Oh, shut up.”

Chloe giggled.

A thought occurred, and Rachel found herself grinning quite wide after a second or two.

“Don’t make me burn it in _your_ hands.”

Chloe scoffed, crossing her arms with the towel.

“You wouldn’t.”

Rachel rolled her eyes and shook her head, but Chloe did have a point somewhere in all of this.

They didn’t really know how crazy Rachel’s powers might become, so maybe at least the smallest bit of precaution could be taken; the scraps were still close to some grass and the ground, and that might somehow result in more tinder, and who even knew what else was flammable inside the pile itself.

Rachel looked around and spotted one of the many rusted-out junks of former vehicles, some nondescript car thing, and hummed thoughtfully.

“Never mind the pile. Let’s go burn it on that car’s engine block.”

Chloe looked to where Rachel was, while Rachel looked back to her.

It was Rachel’s turn to smirk.

“I’m pretty sure there’s no big fuck-off trees near it.”

Chloe giggled and shoved Rachel in revenge as she briskly made her way to the car, and with a slight eyeroll, Rachel followed right after her.

When they got to the car, they both examined the hood to try and get it open, but Chloe was more practiced with such things, and got it open easily enough.

There was still some sort of engine inside, but that only meant more in the way of any other potential tinder, so that was fine.

Chloe put the towel down on the engine, though sort of lazily, just throwing it on there.

She hummed.

“So. You start the fire and I drop the hood if it gets out of control. Should squash it.”

Rachel hummed, too.

“Making yourself useful, huh?”

Chloe shrugged.

“Someone’s gotta be the good girlfriend between the two of us.”

It came with a smirk, though, endlessly playful, and Rachel just sighed happily, leaning over to plant a quick kiss on Chloe’s cheek.

“And you are. Now.”

She looked to the towel while Chloe’s free hand gently rubbed at her kiss mark – probably because of the lipstick.

Another little endearing thing, though Rachel concentrated more on the towel and the car.

It was hard for Rachel to not have the prior fire she started on her mind, though, especially with Chloe directly teasing her about it, so she unconsciously looked the engine for anything that might be flammable or some sort of escape for the fire.

Chloe noticed, though, the hesitation.

“Well? Do the – y’know. Fire thing.”

Rachel blinked and shook her head to dispel the nagging thoughts.

This wouldn’t be like before.

“Right.”

Rachel focused on the towel itself, now, satisfied that this was a relatively safe sandbox.

She raised her hand, waved it, thinking of the fire starting and burning the towel and … nothing.

Rachel frowned, and waved her hand a bit more, sort of idiotically.

Chloe raised an eyebrow and looked over to Rachel.

“Don’t tell me you’re out of juice after one pot pipe.”

Rachel huffed and looked over to Chloe,

“ _No_.”

Chloe grinned,

“Then why’s it not on fire already?”

Rachel groaned and started shaking her head in her irritation –

“I’m _trying,_ I just –“

When her hand waved again, though, the towel caught on fire, once again silencing the two of them.

The way the fire spread was reminiscent of the last time Rachel started a serious fire - in the forest – in that the fire consumed the towel immediately, spreading unnaturally fast and brightly.

There were even little streaks of blue here and there, even more intense than the main fire itself, flying off in various directions like sparks – thankfully they had taken this precaution, or that might’ve been a problem.

“Woah.”

They could both feel the intense, almost unnatural warmth from here, and Chloe had the thought to just drop the hood on it anyway, in case the flames rose up to her hand somehow.

But of course, fire doesn’t ignite metal, and the towel was so abused and dilapidated and short of threads it only lasted a few seconds before nothing but ashes remained, fire dismissed from sight.

They both watched it in impressed silence, even long after there was nothing but ash, but eventually Chloe let the hood fall with a loud _thunk_ and looked over to Rachel, blinking a few times.

“Well … that was something else.”

Rachel blinked herself, too.

The confirmation that she had fire powers that she could control was … yeah, something else, thanks Chloe.

“Yeah. This is … big.”

Chloe nodded, now smiling some, and crossing her arms.

“Do I get to call you a super hero now? Super Rachel? Or – the Mysterious Force of Amber Nature? Sommat?”

Rachel giggled and playfully shoved at Chloe again before walking away from the car, some.

“You better.”

Then, a heavy, deep sigh.

“Man.”

Chloe walked up beside her,

“What’s wrong?”

Rachel shook her head.

“Nothing.”

She then groaned and raised a hand to rub at her temples, since Chloe’s incredulous look meant she didn’t believe it for one second, and she shouldn’t have.

Rachel looked over to Chloe, crossing her arms as well.

“We gotta figure out how exactly these powers work. Like, completely. We need to know _everything._ And that’s … it’s a lot to take on.”

Chloe blinked and sighed a bit.

“I’m guessing you’re gonna want to burn more than just some pot pipes, then.”

Rachel smiled.

“Don’t you?”

This was a question Chloe didn’t know how she wanted to answer – since, well, Rachel’s fire powers had already resulted in … a lot of very real consequences.

And there was a worry, in the back of Chloe’s head, that this whole business would be better if they just … forgot it ever happened.

Rachel had a habit of taking new things up and running with them until the novelty wore off and they bored her, and it wasn’t always the healthiest of things.

But it was a mere worry, and it was merely in the back of her head, so Chloe soon found herself smiling as well and nodding.

“Fuck yeah. Let’s go find some more shit to burn.”

Excitedly, they started searching again, intending to repeat their experiment as many times as necessary before they determined exactly how Rachel could summon fires or – whatever else her powers afforded to her.

Chloe never quite shook the worry out of her head, though.

 

At least Rachel had some semblance of control over these fires.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max wakes up in someone's bed.
> 
> Max wonders who she is.
> 
> Later, Taylor is worried.

It was never really the night that was the problem, it was the morning after.

When Max came into consciousness, her world was impossibly slow and arduous, and her eyes didn’t want to stay open for very long at all.

What she _did_ see was concerning, since she didn’t recognize any of it, but her body didn’t really want to move – for a variety of reasons.

She was warm, for one, comfy –

Under a nice blanket, on a nice bed, with … someone’s arms around her.

What?

Max could feel them clear as day, wrapped around her body almost affectionately – one even resting between her thighs and – oh god.

Max realized she was naked and that someone else’s hands were on her naked body, nakedly enjoying her nakedness.

The fatigue and desire to not move were there, and overpowering, but the sudden discomfort of this realization combined in a very uneasy way with her surroundings not being familiar and she forced her eyes open to examine things, breathing more quickly and tense all over.

This room …

Max recognized, eventually, the various posters around the room, the too-expensive furniture, the way the curtains were drawn and letting in only a delicate amount of tinted light –

This was Victoria’s room.

Victoria …

Max closed her eyes again and found herself relaxing a bit, somehow not needing to disturb her position to know the hands around her were Victoria’s – maybe by smell, maybe by memory, maybe by pure coincidence and luck, but –

She remembered bits and pieces of what happened last night.

Making out with Victoria …

Getting a little handsy with her …

Some dancing, even …

Fuck.

When Max came to Arcadia Bay, having casual sex after partying and drinking with a woman just – wasn’t even a consideration.

It wasn’t even in the realm of options.

She was Max Caulfield, average nerd of no meaningful description or claim to fame, who could barely even string two sentences together without feeling awkward and useless, and yet –

Her body told her that she was in Victoria’s arms, after having slept with her – though the memory of exactly what they did was squarely locked away and inaccessible – maybe it didn’t even form at all.

Max sighed a little.

She got so drunk last night she couldn’t even remember what happened but – after a few beers, it was just … so easy to keep drinking, and everyone in the club seemed pleased by her drinking.

Even if it tasted awful, it kind of made it so much easier to relax and not be such a useless mess and – apparently that was enough, for Victoria.

She remembered bits and pieces of their conversation before – well, all of this.

After enough beers, Victoria wasn’t shy about her attraction … and neither was Max.

And when drunk, she didn’t even really care about the consequences or the implications or anything – Max considered herself straight, but with a cute girl actively flirting with her, complimenting her, touching her …

Max shuddered a bit.

Even now, there were vague thoughts wondering who exactly she was, now, as a person, after having partied like that and slept freely with someone else – losing her virginity to them, even – but, somehow, she just really didn’t care about any of that.

Her body barely even allowed her to move her arms or open her eyes, and her brain simply wouldn’t let her think about bullshit like that right now – maybe a consequence of all the drinking she did last night.

Probably.

Either way, even with a flurry of confusing, conflicted thoughts, Max was able to relax in Victoria’s arms and fall back asleep, since that’s what her body told her she needed right now.

 

She woke up next, probably hours later, when the set of arms on her moved and she heard a groan behind her.

Victoria’s spooning position was interrupted as she kicked off the sheets, removed her hands from Max’s body, and slowly sat up – inching away, Max guessed by the way the weight on the bed shifted around.

Max found herself suddenly without any warmth at all, and immediately missed Victoria’s arms around her, even if she wasn’t even sure if she wanted them back.

She opened her eyes and sat up herself, and – boy, moving sucked right now, and Max felt like she was just going to fall right back down from how her head was spinning.

Either way, she managed to do what Victoria did, in sitting up on the edge of the bed and dangling her legs off the edge.

Max’s feet didn’t even touch the floor.

Max rubbed at her forehead, as if that would somehow soothe her headache and vertigo, but after some very thick and awkward painfully quiet seconds, she realized Victoria wasn’t going to say or do anything, and she painfully ratcheted her gaze over to looking at her.

Victoria’s posture was easily recognizable – closed off.

Her face was looking away, down at the floor somewhere.

Her arms were loosely crossed.

One leg was crossed over the other.

She put the entire length of the bed between the two of them, such that Max sat up near the pillows and Victoria was all the way down at the foot of the bed.

And Max was so cold.

She unconsciously found some sheets to wrap around herself, which while doubling as keeping her decent due to her lack of clothes, was primarily used just for the warmth.

Being naked around Victoria _should_ have felt supremely scandalizing, but in the haze of her mind, it was much less of an active concern, particularly if they had slept together, particularly particularly after they woke up spooning, with Victoria’s hands where they were.

Still, Max didn’t really know what to say, here.

She remembered Victoria taking most of the initiative last night, which worked just well for Max, as it always did.

Max never made friends herself, she just somehow fell through life with random people deciding to “adopt” her – first after her school in Seattle, and now even back here at Blackwell.

She knew even less what people saw in her now, especially what Victoria did, than ever before, since at least her group in Seattle were something of the local losers.

Victoria was not a loser.

In fact, in a lot of ways, she inspired some weird jealousy out of Max – she wanted to be someone like her, someone who was self-assured, professionally competent, and could do what they wanted to do and asserted themselves when they needed to.

Why she decided to be nice to Max and take her under her wing she still didn’t know and couldn’t even begin to figure out – but, a somewhat worrying thought popped into her mind.

Was Victoria nice to her just to use her for the sex?

Is that what this was?

The way Victoria almost seemed ashamed in her closed-off posture certainly registered like that to Max, but it was hard to imagine someone actually doing that to her, not the least of which because Max wasn’t all that good-looking and also a virgin.

Max’s eyes had drifted away from Victoria as she thought, but they went back to her now.

Neither had done so much as breathe heavily since they got up, and it was awkward, but not crushingly so.

It just seemed like they needed their time to think …

Eventually, Max looked forward and sighed.

“Uhm …”

Victoria groaned and uncrossed her arms to rub at her forehead, still looking away.

“Shut it, Caulfield. Let me think.”

She sounded annoyed.

Max knew she rarely didn’t, though, so it bothered her less than it probably should have, and she found herself nodding quietly in passive agreement.

“R-right.”

She avoided eye contact, since Victoria seemed to be pointedly refusing that, but eventually, Victoria stood up with a groan, walked over to her closet, and put on a night gown – some fancy floral thing, almost like lingerie – and Max quietly chided herself for how her eyes immediately went to Victoria and admired her curves while she more-or-less cat walked over to it.

Despite the fact they probably slept together, staring at her like that still felt creepy and predatory to Max, like she was some kind of pervert, so she averted her gaze before Victoria could catch her staring and knew how creepy she was.

When Victoria was more dressed, she walked over to her desk and opened a few drawers before finding some water bottles – twisting the cap off of one and slamming the entire thing in one go, before crushing it and tossing it to a mini recycling bin underneath – and then picking up another bottle and sitting down next to Max.

Max’s eyes went to Victoria’s legs and the water bottle, where Victoria’s eyes were, too.

Quiet.

At least Victoria was closer, now?

She sat down next to her like a friend, though not like how Max imagined a lover would, with both of her hands down in her lap, gently holding the water bottle by its neck with two fingers.

It took some more consideration before Victoria sat herself up and pushed the water bottle into Max’s direction, though not having an easy way to penetrate the sheets.

Still, no eye contact.

“You should drink water. It’s good for hangovers.”

Hangover.

Right.

That’s probably what she was.

That explained some things.

Max’s eyes followed the bottle, and then she worked a hand free to accept it into her sheet.

She gently twisted off the top too, and thought her drinking would be more dignified than Victoria’s, but as soon as the water hit her tongue, her body was surprisingly needy, and she found herself chugging the whole thing pretty easily, though it left her slumped forward and breathing a bit too heavily, desperately for a few seconds.

She’d spilled some water on her chest and the sheet and that certainly wasn’t helping her from feeling cold.

Victoria sighed more wearily, having casually watched Max’s reaction.

“We … probably shouldn’t have drunk too much. You’re a mess.”

For once, Victoria’s eyes were meaningfully on her, and when Max looked over to her, Victoria looked away, again, once again denying her direct eye contact.

Max kept looking, though now that Victoria was closer, Max could see some of the wear and tear from last night – her eyeliner was running, her hair was a little messy although still impressively composed – some of her foundation had worn off so her skin tone was uneven, marred with redness here and there.

She didn’t look any less attractive to Max, though.

Max didn’t really know what to say here, so whatever was first up to bat on her mind got to swing.

“Probably not … does it – um – always feel like this afterwards?”

Victoria’s eyes briefly flicked over to her, but didn’t linger again.

At least they had some brief eye contact.

Victoria shook her head.

“No. But you went through more than a six pack and – yeah. The more you drink, the worse it feels the morning after.”

That made logical sense to Max, but the knowledge that she had drunk more than six beers was alarming – even just drinking _one_ was difficult with the taste, and she only clearly remembered drinking two.

Did someone feed her drinks, or is that just what she drunk when she finally got a bit tispy …?

Max couldn’t tell.

Maybe Victoria remembered.

Max cleared her throat, and it was still scratchy and dry – her voice sounding similarly – but at least the water helped soothe it a bit.

“I guess. I don’t – I don’t remember drinking that many, though … were you guys like – giving them to me or –“

Victoria’s entire face snapped over to Max, and it was suddenly quite harsh and judging,

“ _No_.”

Max blinked, and found herself shrinking a bit at Victoria’s harsh rebuttal, not keeping eye contact and looking back down at the floor.

After a few awkward seconds, Victoria sighed and tried to even out her harsh expression.

“We don’t do that sort of stuff.”

She looked forward, with Max.

“But we had it available. It can be hard to stop drinking, sometimes …”

Max sighed.

“I guess …”

That conflicted her, since Max thought she had better self-control than that, but at least they weren’t trying to get her drunk?

Max trusted Victoria probably wasn’t lying to her, since she was one of the only people on campus who had ever been all that nice to her – even if it was in a very Victoria way.

Her eyes slowly went back to Victoria.

“I – um.”

Her eyes nervously flicked down, and Victoria looked back to her with a flat questioning grunt.

Max sighed, even more wearily this time.

Better see what _else_ Victoria remembered.

“Did we – y’know?”

Her eyes went up.

Victoria blinked.

“What?”

Max blushed a bit and looked away from her again, rubbing at her arm in self-comfort under the blanket,

“… y’know.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow.

“Fuck?”

Max nodded, feeling even more heated.

Victoria scoffed, amused.

“Probably. Can’t think of any other reason to find you naked, in my bed …”

Max just collapsed in on herself, a bit.

There was the confirmation.

Her brain was feeling a little more lucid and awake by now and some of the implications were starting to be – worrying.

“Oh. I … didn’t imagine it happening like – this.”

Victoria’s eyebrow went up further.

“Like – ‘this’?”

She crossed her arms and the inflection of her tone wasn’t welcoming, now more of questioning.

Max blinked.

By her ears, Victoria even sounded a little offended, which – of course, doing this probably didn’t even register as much of a thing to her.

Still.

Max sighed.

“Like – casually – I.”

She frowned, and looked over to Victoria.

“I always dreamed I’d – lose it – in a more … romantic, way.”

Victoria blinked a couple dozen times, but her expression evened out to something that was easier to look at and keep eye contact with.

“You … were a virgin.”

Max blushed a bit more but nodded, and Victoria groaned, looking forward again and leaning down a bit.

“Well - that’s just great.”

Max didn’t know how to handle this particular reaction.

At least Victoria wasn’t upset at her?

“Is that – a problem?”

Victoria scoffed, amused, and shook her head a bit, still not looking at Max.

“Not for me.”

She looked over to Max,

“It’s probably better this way, anyway.”

Max blinked.

“How? I can’t even – ugh.”

She shook her head and broke a hand away from the inside of her blanket to rub at her forehead.

“I can’t even remember anything we did. How could that be a good thing?”

Victoria scoffed again, looking back down.

“Your first time always sucks. You’re not missing much to not remember it.”

She slowly sat herself back up to a proper up-right position.

“And the next time you fuck it’ll be easier. So. Win-win.”

Victoria looked back to Max, and Max sighed, removing her hand and going back into her blanket some more.

She _had_ heard the idea of the first time not being especially pleasant, and she could see _some_ logic in what Victoria was saying, but … still.

She frowned a bit.

“I don’t care about it being easier. I care about – making a connection. Knowing someone. Bonding with them.”

Victoria laughed, crossing her arms afterwards.

“ _God_ , that’s mushy. You certainly didn’t care about that shit last night.”

Max sighed wearily, looking down.

“I guess not … that’s what alcohol does to me, I guess.”

Victoria frowned a bit.

“Alcohol doesn’t change you, Max.”

Max blinked and looked up.

“Huh?”

Victoria shook her head.

“You heard what I said. It doesn’t change who you are a person so much as –“

Victoria frowned a bit more and uncrossed her arms to place them on the edge of the bed,

“- lower your inhibitions. But that desire to have raw, unprotected sex with someone you hardly knew …”

Victoria smiled a bit, and it was a strange sight to see, almost a little unnerving,

“… that’s all in you. The alcohol just made you more willing to go through with it.”

Max’s eyes went down as she processed this.

She trusted that Victoria knew what alcohol does to someone better, but she wasn’t sure how much she believed this interpretation.

… then again …

Max’s eyes went back up to Victoria, to see that smile, and now that smile felt different – comforting, maybe, but definitely not unsettling.

Max wanted to smile back, even.

Victoria was just cute like that – and it was hard to say Max wasn’t attracted to it.

And the thought of sleeping with Victoria again – sober or not – wasn’t inherently unappealing, but the mere fact that it wasn’t disturbed Max, for some reason.

Is this just who she was?

Did she really go from being unable to make a friend on her own to sleeping with strangers because she found them cute?

Max frowned a bit, but more in thought than anything else.

“Are you sure?”

Victoria rolled her eyes.

“No. I just made up a bunch of bullshit for no reason.”

She frowned.

“ _Yes,_ I’m sure.”

Max sighed and looked away from Victoria, back forwards to the floor.

“… I didn’t know I had it in me.”

Victoria left her frown to just look at Max quietly.

“You didn’t? You weren’t thinking of fucking me at all before that night?”

Max blushed again.

“No? Yes? I don’t know.”

It came with a groan and she broke her hands away to hide her face more completely.

Victoria didn’t quite understand the reaction, though, looking at Max more carefully after a few blinks.

“Huh?”

After a few seconds of embarrassment, Max pulled her face out of her hands and looked at Victoria.

“I didn’t even think I liked … um … women.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow.

“… really.”

She didn’t sound very convinced, but Max nodded.

“Really, really – I just – “

Victoria was suddenly close, though – much closer than she had ever been, scooting over until their bodies were adjacent.

Max froze, and her mouth just stayed open, gaping a bit awkwardly.

Victoria slowly grained a smile, and then it became predatory and toothy.

She slowly leaned in to Max’s face, and Max stayed exactly where she was as one of Victoria’s hands came up to her still-blushing cheeks to feel at its warmth and embarrassment.

Not that what she was doing was _at all_ going to make Max’s blush less severe – in fact, it went on fire with the contact, the touch, the proximity.

The warmth Max had been wanting all morning came from that hand and it felt _perfect_ and skin jumped alive at the sensation and she breathed in a quick, hurried gasp of a sound.

Victoria just chuckled in her amusement and kept rubbing gently at Max’s cheek.

“… I think you know that’s bullshit, Max …”

Sultry.

Max blinked a couple dozen times.

“I – I – I ---”

The hands moved to Max’s lips, placing a finger on them to silence her.

“--- Shhhhh.”

Victoria closed her eyes and slowly moved her head over to Max’s ear, breathing gently but warmly into it while lowering her tone all the way down.

“… just imagine where else this hand has been … and tell me you don’t know.”

Max closed her eyes, too, now breathing pretty rapidly and shallowly, jumping a little again as Victoria’s hand trailed down from her lips to her neck and just started to gently, almost lovingly stroke along Max’s neck and collarbones.

Fuck.

There was absolutely no denying how hot this was to Max, and how easily her brain did exactly what Victoria wanted to do – imagining her touching elsewhere, making Max feel more like this – warm, good, a little helpless –

“Victoria …”

Max hated how breathless her voice was, all of the sudden, as gentle as Victoria’s was in her ear.

Victoria _bit_ Max’s earlobe and tugged on it a bit –

“Louder, Max. Sing for me.”

The hand started to go lower –

Max felt like she was going to explode from – everything –

“ _Victoria_!”

This came out much louder, more like a moan at this point, but as soon as she delivered it, hoping to encourage Victoria on further, Victoria just chuckled deep and low into Max’s ear and pulled away, leaving Max decidedly heated and wanting.

She went back to that friendly distance.

Max slowly realized what happened and blinked her eyes open in some confusion, but just saw Victoria sitting there, looking quite self-satisfied and smug.

… and yeah, Max really wanted Victoria’s hand to continue.

That cleared up things pretty easily …

“I … uh … wow.”

Victoria chuckled.

“Don’t even _think_ about telling me you’re straight, Max.”

Max gently nodded, still recovering from that sudden excitement very poorly, and only now feeling like she could move again, for whatever it was that she became still when Victoria was close.

“… I guess not.”

But all this just –

This just brought back those thoughts earlier about wondering the kind of person she was.

Victoria was not in a relationship with her now, was she?

And yet, Max would have absolutely enjoyed Victoria continuing – all the way to sex, probably – if she wanted to.

Max felt that conflict between who she _thought_ she was and who her body apparently wanted her to be and it was just so confusing.

She should feel ashamed or – something, right?

This was basically a sin?

Max was basically a sinner, now?

Max groaned, pretty painfully, and laid down on the bed, trying to hide her face in the sheets and her hands and just escape the world for a few seconds.

Victoria blinked and watched her, once again not quite understanding the reaction.

She let her have her moment, though, considering things herself.

Flirting with Max when sober … definitely implied things she might not want implied – and the plan was never to even sleep with her.

Yet … here she was.

As much as Max felt some conflict, Victoria did, too, but similar to how Max gave into her temptations when conflicted, Victoria did, too.

Was she _not_ going to flirt with the adorable, cute, still-naked girl on her bed?

It was just so automatic, even if Victoria told herself to not do it with Max, to not get any sort of attached.

Still, the silence dragged on, and Max’s response was a little worrying.

“That’s a … very, odd response to being aroused, Max.”

Max shook her head, even if Victoria might not be able to see it anymore.

“… it’s not, um, that.”

Victoria blinked.

“Huh?”

Max turned around and laid flat on her back, tearing some of the sheets off to look at Victoria again, who was squarely looking back at her with a half-confused expression.

“It’s … ugh.”

Max looked up to Victoria’s ceiling and gathered her thoughts for a few moments.

She wondered if she could tell Victoria all of this crap, but, if not her, who else?

She sighed.

“I feel like … I don’t even know who I am anymore, after last night, or something …”

Victoria scoffed and shook her head.

“That’s dumb. You’re Max Caulfield. Member of the Vortex Club. And my friend – with benefits.”

When Victoria summed it up like that … it was hard to disagree.

Max felt pieces of her mind shifting around.

She didn’t hate what Victoria brought out of her – as much as her morals told her what she was doing was wrong and she should feel ashamed, that’s just not how her body reacted.

It’s just not who she was.

She was … someone else, now.

It felt odd how little it took to change who she was, as a person, but maybe she never really knew.

Maybe that’s why she felt so lost and confused.

Still, Max’s eyes eventually looked down to Victoria.

“Is that all we are?”

Victoria shrugged.

“I’m not looking for love, Max.”

She stood up and walked over to her desk, and Max realized she didn’t feel ashamed anymore when she watched her go.

“And you certainly weren’t either, last night.”

Victoria leaned down again to get another set of water bottles, once again drinking one herself in one chug and crushing it before tossing it into the recycling bin, and once again moving to the bed to offer the water to Max.

“Let’s not over complicate this.”

Max watched Victoria come back, too, this time not caring if Victoria caught her staring, and looked at the water bottle when it was offered.

It didn’t take her long to take it.

“Okay.”

Victoria crossed her arms and smiled as Max more gently drank this one.

It felt like a pretty good outcome, all things considered, and this was just sex, so Victoria didn’t have to worry that much about getting too attached.

… but there were vague, worrying signs.

The little content smile Max gave when she finished her drink.

The way she completely went immobile when Victoria flirted with her.

Those damn freckles …

Victoria wasn’t catching feelings for Max, but damn if she wasn’t attracted to her.

She got back down on the bed, but once again, got close to Max, laying down on top of her.

Max just looked at her in that cute, helpless way she did.

Victoria smirked.

“Now let me show you what you forgot about last night …”

Max giggled, a little nervously, but didn’t have a bone in her body to tell Victoria no or to resist as her hands entered the blanket.

 

She wasn’t, apparently, the kind of person to resist the offer of casual lesbian sex.

 

The implications of that were still worrying, but Victoria was maddeningly distracting and accommodating, and as her blush intensified and she rediscovered what she forgot about last night, she really didn’t think about who she used to be.

This was more fun.

Victoria would warm up to a relationship, eventually.

 

\---

 

When Taylor knocked on Victoria’s door, she noticed that she opened it – actually opened it – and pretty quickly, at that.

Victoria’s face did a thing, too – when she saw it – at first being a little bright and hopeful, then scowling slightly in the way she always did.

As Taylor registered it, she raised an eyebrow.

“Expecting someone else?”

Victoria blinked then shook her head.

“No. Come in.”

She didn’t gesture, though, just kind of scoffing, crossing her arms, and keeping her door open with her body.

Taylor looked at her for a moment or two, but nodded and breezily walked into Victoria’s room, sitting down on her couch while Victoria closed the door and took her usual place on her computer chair.

Victoria didn’t say anything, and that was at least something familiar.

Still, Taylor hummed.

“Are you sure you weren’t hoping to see Max?”

Victoria grunted flatly, taping at her keyboard a bit.

“What’s it to you?”

Taylor smiled, a bit.

“That’s not a ‘no’.”

Victoria sighed and rolled her eyes before finally looking over to Taylor.

“You’re not going to hear one, bitch. Answer the question.”

Taylor giggled a bit and shook her head.

“Well – y’know. It’s – nice. To see you – yeah.”

Victoria frowned.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

It was Taylor’s turn to groan and roll her eyes.

“That you’re an ice queen who closes everyone off and I’m happy you’re not doing that with your relationship with Max?”

Victoria kept her frown.

“I don’t have a relationship with Max.”

The lack of pushback on the other things, though, was quite telling.

Taylor sighed.

“Toh-may-to, toh-mah-to. You’re -”

Victoria grunted and shook her head,

“- it’s important, bitch. She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my fuck buddy.”

Taylor eyed Victoria carefully, slowly crossing her arms.

“You’re telling me it’s strictly a sex thing?”

Victoria nodded pleasantly.

Taylor frowned a bit.

“You guys don’t like – cuddle, or kiss or –“

Victoria sharply shook her head.

“- _no_. I make her pussy scream. That’s it. She’s fun and adorably helpless. End of.”

Victoria had slowly turned to face Taylor doing this exchange, and pointedly reversed that by facing her computer again and resuming typing.

Taylor sighed and considered things for a few moments, wondering where and how she wanted to take this, and what all she wanted to encourage Victoria to do.

Since she was, well, incredibly conflicted.

On the one hand, it was so nice to see the little smiles and see how Victoria softened up around Max – not as though she was a different person, and she was still so sharp, but most of her attention was focused on Max and not the other people in the club or around her – and her attention to Max was never that hostile, or at least by her standards.

She seemed happier.

But on the other hand – it was Max.

Victoria knew damn well why she shouldn’t be dating her, and apparently, she didn’t think she was.

But there was no way Max didn’t think she was dating Victoria, and she certainly wasn’t sleeping around freely.

… and neither was Victoria.

If they were exclusive, well …

… the worry was there.

Taylor frowned some more and sighed flatly.

“Are you sure, sure, 100 percent proof-positive? I don’t think Max works like that.”

Victoria scoffed, not even looking over.

“She does. She knows.”

It wasn’t very convincing, at least from not of what Taylor knew of Max.

She kept her frown.

“And you’re saying you can keep having casual sex with her without catching feelings?”

Victoria nodded simply.

“Did it with you.”

She looked over to Taylor, who just blinked, and Victoria smirked a bit.

“Like you said. I’m the ice queen.”

She did a small gesticulation with her hands before looking back at her computer monitor.

Her tone and little gesture did make Taylor giggle a bit, but then just sigh and place her hands on the edge of Victoria’s couch, thinking some more.

That comparison was fraught for a lot of reasons, but …

Maybe it was apt, too.

Taylor still had unresolved feelings for Victoria, but if Max was in a similar situation – hm.

That could work.

She finally smiled a bit.

“Well, alright. Just don’t – y’know. We can’t have you –“

Victoria groaned loudly.

“ _I know_. Just trust me.”

She looked over to Taylor, expressionless.

“I won’t catch feelings. She’s just a pussy to me.”

She kept this look for a few moments to make sure it landed, and it finally seemed to convince Taylor a bit, who smiled some more and nodded gently in response.

Satisfied, Victoria went back to her computer with a content sound.

With the main topic of contention out of the way, Taylor relaxed a bit.

“Well, I guess if there’s anyone on campus who can do that, it’s you. Okay.”

Victoria just scoffed, amused.

They had other things to talk about, anyway …

Taylor’s smile soon turned wry.

“What’s she like in bed, anyway?”

Victoria shook her head.

“What, are we talking girls now?”

Taylor nodded.

“Do we talk about anything else?”

Victoria blinked and hesitated, and Taylor just giggled.

Eventually, Victoria sighed a bit and got up from her computer chair to sit on her bed, crossing her arms again.

That was nothing new.

But the new thing came right afterwards – as Victoria’s mind went to Max – and her posture relaxed.

Taylor could literally see the tension in Victoria’s body melt out as her shoulders lowered, her jaw unclenched, her fists became less tight, and the whole posture was just so much more at ease.

Victoria kept her eyes closed.

“… she’s fun.”

Even her voice – softer, a bit higher in pitch, less commanding and intimidating.

Taylor smiled.

Victoria was so impossibly cute like this – and maybe she wanted to see more of it for entirely selfish reasons, but, could anyone blame her?

She got up from the couch to stand in front of her, smiling smiling smiling.

“That’s very specific.”

Victoria scoffed gently, amused, eyes still closed.

“Do you want me to paint you a picture?”

Taylor sat down next to her, with some friendly distance between them, and placed her hands on the edge of the bed.

“Maybe later. I’ll hang it up in my room.”

Victoria scoffed again, and Taylor liked amusing her like that quite a lot.

“Pervert.”

Taylor got in closer, and although touching Victoria was A Process, usually, she felt like she could get away with it here and now, and placed her head on Victoria’s shoulder.

Surprisingly, Victoria remained more relaxed and didn’t refuse the touch even subconsciously, like she would usually do.

Taylor wasn’t complaining.

She spoke a bit more softly and closed her eyes.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She looked up and moved her face so it was quite close, smiling gently.

“Tell me more.”

Victoria thought about it some more, sighed quite wearily, slowly, then started to lay down.

“Fine. I’ll give you another thing to masturbate to, you dyke.”

Taylor griiiiiinned and easily slotted herself on the other spot on the bed.

“… you say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Victoria had her amused scoffing again, but was soon relaxing even more, and the story she told was quite cute.

And while Taylor learned some even more adorable things – like Victoria apparently making Max gay, there were small bits of worry, here and there.

Victoria never failed to describe Max in a complimentary way.

It was always ‘she does this adorable thing’, and not the more flat, efficient way – stuff like that.

Maybe she wasn’t catching feelings, but she sure was crushing.

 

Taylor still wasn’t sure if she wanted that to escalate or not.

 

But this was fun.

She put it out of her mind, for now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe and Rachel continue to explore Rachel's powers.
> 
> It's more difficult than either of them expect.
> 
> But Rachel knows what she has to do.

This time, when the fire started, Chloe gasped.

Faster than she was able to really keep up with, the tinder they had collected didn’t just ignite – it basically _exploded_ into a violent flame that shot all the way up to the hood of the rusted-out car they were using as a safety measure.

A safety measure Chloe now used, without hesitation, letting the hood _slam_ down and take the fire with it.

But her reaction time still meant some of the fire reached her, and she shook her hand with an inwards hissing noise.

“Ah. Fuck.”

Rachel, meanwhile, had been quiet, deathly so, just staring intently at the now-closed hood and frowning.

Chloe’s over-enthusiastic reaction didn’t even phase her, because her mind was far away, in some pretty unpleasant places.

Chloe noticed after a few moments, looking over to Rachel and crossing her arms.

“You okay?”

Rachel didn’t really respond, and Chloe sighed a bit.

The expression on her face was grim and serious, and Chloe knew she had to be thinking about some awful things – since that was the whole point of their little experiment, here.

So, instead of more words, Chloe just casually slid up behind her and wrapped her arms around, hugging loosely at her belly and waist.

They both closed their eyes and breathed as one, for a precious few relaxing seconds.

The distress in Rachel’s body slowly left her, as it always did when Chloe deigned to give her affection, and the weight on her shoulders lessened as she unwound and gradually leaned back more and more into Chloe’s arms.

There was just something so uniquely calming about Chloe that Rachel didn’t even know how she’d be able to do without.

Sooner or later, her arms uncrossed to affectionately stroke along Chloe’s arms, although when she opened her eyes, she noticed one of Chloe’s hands had some unpleasant-but-not-serious-looking burn marks, the kind where skin just got red and itchy and annoying.

Rachel almost winced at that, and immediately felt a pang of guilt, automatically securing Chloe’s hand in hers and ever so gently bringing it up to her lips so that she could quietly kiss what she had wounded.

Not that Chloe was complaining.

Afterwards, when Rachel just kinda stole her hand and rubbed her cheek against it gently, Chloe smirked, since it was pretty cute – but also deeply reassuring.

Rachel had gotten into a bad place, but here was the same old overly affectionate girlfriend she had come to love so dearly again, meaning Chloe had once again managed to pull her up.

Soon, Rachel lazily let the hand fall back down to hug her again while she recrossed her arms and looked back to the car.

 

Chloe finally opened her eyes.

“… well, at least there weren’t any trees around.”

 

Even though it came out as playfully as it could, Rachel groaned and knocked her head back a bit to bump into whatever part of Chloe was behind her, which just made Chloe giggle.

“No. No trees. Just – you.”

Rachel breathed in deeply.

“And I just hurt you.”

Chloe kind of shrugged.

“I shoulda dropped it faster. ‘s my fau ---”

Chloe suddenly stopped when Rachel rejected this, fully separating herself from Chloe in a rather rare move as she turned around to seriously face her, arms all crossed and face all serious.

“--- _no_.”

Chloe forked her hands into her jean’s pockets, not quite returning the seriousness yet, but getting there.

“Mhhhn.”

Chloe looked away.

So did Rachel, though her eyes went downwards, as if in shame.

Chloe had to admit that they were, in fact, playing with fire, in a very literal way, and getting burned was sort of part of that process inevitably, and it’s not like her hand was super hurt or anything – but still.

It clearly meant something to Rachel that she in particular was the one to inflict this, and eventually, that made Chloe smile a little bit, since it was cute to think of Rachel being so careful about that.

Reassuring, really, since Chloe had her own doubts about all of this, too.

Rachel eventually sighed and looked up, slowly letting her arms fall down to her sides.

“If I can start fires, I must be able to put them out, too.”

Chloe shrugged and looked back to Rachel, slowly smiling.

“I don’t think you get to make demands out of whatever crap gave you this stuff.”

Rachel huffed.

“Just watch me.”

Rachel walked past Chloe, probably to go get some more tinder to start another fire, and Chloe did, indeed, just watch her go, turning around and lazily locking her hands behind her own head.

She had to admit the burn was kinda annoying, now.

Still, it’s not like Chloe was going to complain about Rachel wanting to control her powers more acutely.

“A tempting proposition …”

Chloe could only see the back of her head, but she knew Rachel well enough to know that either earned a small scoff or an eyeroll, and it made her smile.

With some endearing care in covering her hands with her overshirt, Rachel found some more tinder to burn in one of the nearby junk piles, and started walking towards Chloe again.

She was frowning a bit, in a way that registered as intense thought to Chloe.

“I just don’t know how.”

Chloe hummed flatly as Rachel reached the car and just tossed the tinder on the still-closed hood.

She crossed her arms again and remained looking away, probably in more thought.

Chloe made her way to the front of the car and easily jumped up a bit to sit on the hood herself, lazily collecting her hands in her lap and kicking her boots with little care.

“Well … if being more and more angry spawns bigger fires, maybe calming down afterwards soothes them?”

Rachel was still looking down at the tinder, arms crossed and all, and still frowning.

She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then just shrugged and sighed, looking up finally to Chloe.

“I guess it’s worth a try.”

The frown went away, as it often did when she looked at her girlfriend.

Chloe smiled, too.

“You know where to send my payment for the idea.”

Rachel rolled her eyes and shook her head a bit, but her smile got wider.

“Dork.”

The two enjoyed the moment for a few seconds, then Rachel cleared her throat and uncrossed her arms.

“Okay. Let’s do this.”

Rachel looked at Chloe expectantly and Chloe nodded, pushing herself off the truck with a bit too much force and sort of jittering around afterwards, as if to stretch.

But then she easily moved to Rachel, stealing a quick kiss, before picking up the tinder and opening the car’s hood again.

Worryingly, though, Chloe did it with the same hand that had already been burned.

Rachel looked at intently.

“Chloe – use your other hand.”

She blinked.

“Please.”

Chloe tossed the tinder onto the engine block, shaking her head.

“Um, no.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I like you a lot, babe, but I’m not letting you burn my good hand.”

She looked over, smirking and tilting her head a bit.

“It’ll be fine.”

She then went more genuine, letting her expression fall flatter.

“I trust you.”

Rachel looked at Chloe for a few moments, then just had to sigh wearily and look forward.

Sometimes, especially as their relationship progressed, Chloe could be as hard-headed as her, and was especially difficult to tame away from something risky.

Rachel usually just enjoyed that part of her – loved it, even – but there was something about the fire that felt different, in a way Rachel couldn’t really parse.

Why _was_ she worrying like this?

Chloe sure wasn’t, like always.

Maybe Rachel was just over-thinking it.

It’s not like her head ever felt like it was on right ever since they discovered this.

Whatever.

Rachel shook her head harshly and tried to clear her mind for the task at hand, slowly closing her eyes.

But the process here was … not pleasant.

Rachel, as they found out through trial and error, had to have very specific emotions in mind to spawn fires, and as they just discovered, the intensity of that emotion determined the ferocity of the fire.

Fire was with anger and frustration.

Rachel had a pretty easy way to get angry and frustrated – her family, and her father in particular.

If it wasn’t for his stupid fucking decisions Rachel’s life would have been so much happier, so much more carefree.

But no.

He had to go and –

There.

Rachel opened her eyes and looked at the tinder.

 

She wanted it to burn, just like she wanted him to.

 

As expected, by now, the tinder obliged her, spawning that beautifully dangerous amber fire –

But something was different, this time.

The fire was too big – like last time – Chloe was going to –

Rachel’s eyes immediately went to Chloe’s hand and saw it hadn’t let go, yet –

Something deep, guttural inside of Rachel erupted, with her gasping and reaching her hand out towards Chloe –

“Chloe!”

Chloe sort of jumped, and looked at Rachel, as she had judged the fire quite differently, and didn’t fully understand the reaction, but –

 

Either way, they were both completely caught off-guard by a fierce gust of wind colliding into them both, and more importantly, the fire, sending it wildly off in a horizontal direction, but also quickly extinguishing it, as it separated from its only source of life – the tinder.

 

And just like when they realized Rachel had more accessible fire powers, they both just froze, looking blankly at each other while they realized something else in unison.

 

Rachel had wind powers, too.

 

They both slowly looked down to the tinder, seeing it charred, but not completely consumed, and blinked a few times, uneasily.

Chloe let the hood of the trunk down with an unceremonious _thud._

Rachel realized her hand had just kind of been awkwardly stretched towards where Chloe’s had been throughout this, and slowly let it fall, towards her chest, gripping at itself into a fist as she did.

She kept looking at Chloe, though.

“… you weren’t going to close the hood in time.”

Chloe crossed her arms and looked over to Rachel flatly.

“Hey. Who’s the one that’s been dropping the hood this entire time? I think I know when to drop it like it’s hot.”

The playfulness was not unappreciated, but Rachel was just in such a weird headspace right now it didn’t land in the usual ways that she would have wanted it to.

Instead, Rachel just sighed, and looked down again.

“I didn’t want to burn you … again.”

Chloe looked at Rachel and slowly started to smile again, since this side of Rachel being so careful, and caring, was honestly really endearing to her, even if slightly unexpected.

“Hey.”

She stepped in front of Rachel.

Rachel blinked and looked up.

Chloe smiled wider, and carefully brought the burned hand to rub at Rachel’s cheek.

Like always, the affection soothed her, and she physically felt some burden leave her as she sighed into the hand and gently rubbed her cheek back against it, slowly closing her eyes.

Chloe couldn’t love this little scene any more or find her girlfriend any cuter than when she nestled her head into some part of Chloe’s body.

It made it really easy to just smile ear to ear.

“I said I trusted you, right? And … looks like I was completely right to.”

While the temptation was there to be wry, Chloe remained genuine, keeping her warm smile.

“You did the thing just to keep me from getting hurt.”

… mostly.

“Maybe you’re not such a bad girlfriend after all.”

After the affection grounded her a bit, Rachel found it easier to connect with Chloe’s playfulness and relax some more, and she gently scoffed.

“I guess you’re right.”

She gently kissed the hand again before looking up at Chloe and crossing her arms.

“You think I created that gust of wind just now?”

It was Chloe’s turn to roll her eyes and cross her arms as well.

“I’m sure it was _just_ a coincidence that you had an emotional outburst and then weird shit happened.”

Another smirk.

“You know. Because that never happens with you.”

Rachel groaned, but found herself smiling before she knew it, because damn if Chloe’s impossibly-buoyant mood wasn’t really fucking nice sometimes.

Rachel just looked at Chloe, content.

“There might be some sort of correlation there.”

Chloe smiiiiiirked.

“Just maybe.”

Rachel did, too.

“Perhaps.”

Chloe chuckled.

“There’s a slight chance.”

Rachel nodded.

“A definite possibility.”

The two then giggled, turned to the car, and Chloe stepped closer to lazily wrap her arm around Rachel to hug her into her side, and there honestly wasn’t any other place Rachel wanted to be right now.

But despite the idle affection, they both had more grave things on their mind, especially Rachel, who, after a few seconds, sighed wearily.

“Fuck.”

Chloe nodded.

“Looks like we have a lot of exploring to do, if your powers aren’t just limited to fire …”

Rachel sort of hesitated.

“And … this is not exactly super fun for me, emotionally.”

Chloe hummed flatly.

“What, are you telling me thinkin’ of your dad all day long ain’t all cuddles and sunshine?”

Rachel couldn’t help a smile.

“I know it’s such a huge surprise …”

What especially endeared Rachel is that she never explained what she was thinking about to Chloe – but Chloe just knew anyway, since she just understood Rachel that well, and it simply felt amazing to have that automatic comprehension out of her.

Rachel shook her head a bit.

“And they’re all tied to shitty emotions, too.”

Chloe grunted.

“Fire’s anger, wind’s – what?”

Rachel frowned a bit in thought, but it didn’t take too long to connect what probably spawned that gust of wind.

“Fear, I think.”

Chloe blinked.

“Fear? How’d you get there from anger so easily?”

Rachel hesitated, then leaned even more into Chloe, trying to slot her head on Chloe’s shoulder and securing her other, burned hand, to gently stroke it with both of hers.

“… thinking of hurting you.”

This, somehow, was quite romantic to Chloe, and so it earned an awkwardly-placed and hurried kiss to whatever part of Rachel’s head Chloe’s lips could make contact with, and she stacked her head on top of Rachel’s as well, them both looking forward to the car.

Chloe sighed happily, contently.

“I’m beginning to think you like me a lot, or something.”

Rachel’s frown easily went away, replaced with a big dopey smile at Chloe’s continued affection.

“A strong possibility, yeah …”

Chloe did quite enjoy the moment too, for a few seconds, but they weren’t out here just to cuddle this time, strangely.

So, she refocused, a bit.

“Maybe you being a force nature is more literal than I thought, then.”

Rachel hummed flatly, then groaned.

“Why can’t they be tied to less shit emotions?”

Chloe scoffed.

“Probably so you don’t burn down my house when I fuck you.”

Rachel groaned, again, slightly shaking her head even if that was not a very good idea with their heads stacked and slotted together like this.

“I mean, fair, but – still.”

She sighed, sort of wearily.

 

“I’ve thought more about my dad and shit family life in just this hour or so than I have in the past three years.”

 

Chloe paused.

“Do you want to take a break, or something …?”

It was a little concerned, but Rachel just sighed again and pushed herself off Chloe.

“No.”

She breathed in deep and slowly turned around to cross her arms and look at Chloe seriously, again.

“I’m a big girl. I can take it. Go find us something else to burn.”

Chloe’s concern was still evident, but Rachel’s persistence easily won her over.

She smiled, a bit uncertainly.

“Bossy bossy.”

Rachel just looked at her expectantly until Chloe took off to find some more tinder.

But, when Chloe was just a few feet away, Rachel found herself less certain about her answer.

Maybe they would discover some other sort of power that didn’t suck so hard to use …

Or maybe she would just get used to it.

Even if they sucked to use, she had them for a reason, and she couldn’t just deny it.

She would bear this burden and do whatever it was she was meant to do.

She knew she could do it.

And, as Chloe skipped a bit too cutely towards some of her scrap piles, Rachel smiled.

She could do it with Chloe by her side.

She could do anything, that way.

 

She was a literal force of nature.

 

But as the day progressed, that hope started to become strained.

Not because of anything to do with Chloe - Chloe was perfect, if a bit worrying sometimes.

No, the problem was the emotional requirement of starting the fires and trying to put them out.

By the fifth or so fire, Rachel found herself unconsciously searching for Chloe and her affection after every attempt.

The affection allowed her to 'reset' herself, and refocus on what the experiment just revealed to them.

But every single time she did it ... it took more and more affection from Chloe to ground her.

Rachel was determined to keep doing this until she mastered her powers completely, but the worry was there.

But so long as Chloe was around ... Rachel didn't have any reason to stop prematurely.

 

It was much later in the day when Rachel got such a reason, though, after she lost her composure and suddenly grasped and blindly shoved herself into Chloe’s body, wherever it was.

The posture here was not dignified – Rachel was awfully slumped over, and her arms tightly came around Chloe, squeezing her for every ounce of life and warmth she possibly could, while her chest heaved uncomfortable, unsteady, raspy breaths in and out.

Her eyes were closed so tightly, and her entire body felt like it might collapse – if not for Chloe, anyway.

Chloe was expecting this.

This wasn’t the first time Rachel reacted to putting out a fire like this – and each time she did it, she seemed more and more desperate to rely on Chloe’s affections to help her pull out of her mood.

And it was … strictly, clearly worrying.

To Chloe, Rachel was obviously overworking herself, pushing herself too hard, too fast.

She was intentionally making fires too big and using winds too harsh to ensure the fire would be put out – since her winds were the only way to reliably put said fires out.

But at the same time, Chloe was not about to refuse Rachel.

She just simply couldn’t see Rachel, trembling and weak and needy, and do anything other than tightly wrap her arms around, lock her knees, and be the stiff rock Rachel needed to cling onto to get out of the vortex of emotions in her mind.

 

This episode was particularly bad.

 

It took the longest – probably more than two minutes – and Chloe had to exert even more affection by gently cooing, sushing her, and removing one of her hands to stroke at her head and hair.

Eventually, though, Rachel was okay – or at least, not on the verge of tears, and breathing easily.

Chloe tucked a strand of hair behind Rachel’s ear.

“Hey …”

Rachel didn’t respond.

Chloe sighed.

“Look. The sun is setting …”

Chloe kept her voice very gentle and soft, lest she inspire more awful emotions in Rachel’s mind.

Rachel still didn’t respond, which did little to ease Chloe’s worry.

“… we’ve been practicing all day, y’know? Let’s go …”

Chloe looked back to her truck,

“… let’s go home. Relax.”

This, then, got a reaction out of Rachel – she forcefully shoved herself off Chloe, shaking her head and standing up straight, crossing her arms.

Her eyes were still closed, though, and her breathing didn’t seem completely recovered.

After a few seconds, Rachel opened her eyes, and they were clearly irritated, but at the same time, her frown was no less resolute.

“ _No_. I’m _not_ done. We’re learning so much – I _need_ to keep going.”

Chloe couldn’t help a frown herself, but it was made gentler due to how mothering she had had to be this afternoon, and despite Rachel’s voice becoming harsh and stern and forceful, Chloe’s didn’t change its gentle timber.

“Rach …”

She tried to plead more with her eyes, softening her face all the way up until it was as concerned as she could make it, and relied on Rachel’s empathy to convince her.

But it didn’t work.

Rachel just shook her head again, walked past Chloe, and despite the setting sun an obvious sign that it was time to go home, she dug through another pile – this time with her hands bare – and roughly opened the safety car’s hood herself, throwing the random object on the car’s engine.

She waited for just a second, while Chloe just watched her, arms crossed.

 

“Are you going to help me?”

 

Chloe sighed, but after only a second or two of thought, nodded and walked over to the car herself, holding it up with the same burned hand that had, somehow, not gotten another fire strike.

Rachel let her arms down and sighed more easily, thankful that Chloe was still supportive, even if she was clearly and probably understandably worried.

But in order to do this, she really did need to empty her mind, and refocus it, and handling keeping the car hood open and closing it when necessary just seemed like too big of an ask on top of that.

Now, the procedure involved two steps – she had to get mad to start the fire, then fearful to put it out.

Those two emotions didn’t flow naturally into each other, so Rachel had to tap into some pretty sore parts of her psyche to get it out, and she had to kind of prepare them both at once in order to set up the transition smoothly enough.

Rachel closed her eyes.

Her breathing was still a little shaky, and there was this awful pressure behind her eyes – fatigue, or a headache maybe – and she felt like she might cry soon, but Rachel pushed herself on.

Like she needed to.

She thought of her dad again.

She imagined all the fucking scheming the bastard must’ve done to orchestrate hiding Rachel’s mother from her.

Coming up with a lie every single time.

Roping in Rachel’s not-mother and convincing her to do much the same.

Refusing Rachel’s real mother the right of talking to her daughter every single time she asked and –

 

Rachel opened her eyes and looked at the tinder.

It wasn’t hard to see it explode into that now-familiar fire –

But she needed to act fast –

Her eyes always went to Chloe’s hand –

She always had to imagine the worst possible things happening to Chloe, to get that fear –

The fire skipping onto her – Chloe screaming as the fire started to consume her –

Rachel being helpless to put it out and having to watch her slowly burn to death –

Knowing it was all her fault –

 

“Uhhggnnn!”

This time, though, Rachel wasn’t able to create that gust of wind, because instead of working through the necessary fear, she went too far in her awful fantasy to wrap around to the sheer sadness she’d feel.

And because the whole point of this was she had to _feel_ the emotions, on a deep, visceral level for the forces of nature to be created, this sadness had to permeate every inch of her body.

Her mind was just simply not capable of resisting it, anymore.

Rachel couldn’t see anything anymore, since the tears long blocked out the increasingly-dark world.

She heard, distantly, the thud of the car as Chloe let the hood down.

She felt, distantly, Chloe’s arms around her, tugging her along somewhere.

But Rachel wasn’t really processing things, right now.

She just needed to cry out the thought of Chloe dying all because of her.

Thankfully, she had a period of time where she could do just that, since there was a drive to Blackwell, and then the entire afternoon to crash in her room.

By the time they reached the truck, Rachel was more aware of her surroundings, and in particular, Chloe’s arms around her, helping her into the truck.

Chloe _intended_ to place Rachel in the passenger side and then walk around to the driver’s, but –

Whence Rachel was aware Chloe intended to separate, Rachel’s arms were desperately around her again, viciously squeezing her for that needed warmth and comfort.

This was even more desperate than the last few times, since this time, Rachel was using the sensation of Chloe’s shirt – the way she smelled – the comfort she provided – as reassurances that she didn’t actually die, that Rachel didn’t actually burn her to death, that she was okay.

After a second or two, Chloe got the point and probably guessed where Rachel’s headspace was, and, endeared, she helped Rachel back out of the truck and they both entered into the driver’s side, sort of simultaneously.

For the entire duration of the drive to Blackwell, they were quiet, except the occasional pathetic sob or sniffle from Rachel, and Chloe simply wasn’t allowed to move an inch without Rachel glued to her in this visceral, needy way.

Even though the truck was a manual Rachel stole Chloe’s hand whenever it wasn’t strictly needed to shift so she could squeeze it – and importantly – feel Chloe squeezing back.

Rachel just _needed_ Chloe, right now, and Chloe wasn’t about to deny her, enjoying her little needy shoulder koala for the short drive back to Blackwell.

 

And at least, by the time they parked, Rachel had convinced herself that she hadn’t killed Chloe, and was able to handle the idea of separating her to get out of the truck normally, and then walk normally as a couple back to her dorm room.

But she didn’t intend to let Chloe out of her sight for a long while, nor deprive herself of Chloe’s affection if she could possibly help it.

 

 

When they entered Rachel's room, Chloe correctly guessed that Rachel wanted to sit down on her bed and just let go.

And Rachel certainly could have done just that, just lay down and die - but she was recomposed enough now to see the burn mark on Chloe's hand, and feel so guilty about it still.

She knew she could fix that, too.

 

Rachel abruptly got up, causing a bit of a surprised sound from Chloe.

"Rach?"

Rachel didn't respond as she went to go fetch her first aid kit and sit down next to Chloe again.

“Stay still.”

Chloe grunted, but didn’t move too much despite herself as Rachel tended to the burn mark she had inflicted earlier.

"It's not that bad ..."

Rachel just shook her head, tiredly.

"Shush."

She sounded pretty drained, which was completely understandable to Chloe.

Chloe decided to just stop and let Rachel do her thing.

As Rachel applied burn ointment and some gauze, she had to admit, after the initial odd string, it did feel pretty nice.

She didn’t like her hand being bandaged up, though.

Looked like she hurt it way more than she had, like someone stabbed it or something.

Whatever.

When Rachel was done with it, she sighed contently and packed up her first aid kit, neatly placing it in the perfect place Rachel had for it in her desk thereafter.

Like everything else, Rachel’s room had a place for everything, and it was coordinated just so, in a way that couldn’t possibly be more of an opposite from Chloe’s.

But Chloe always enjoyed staying in here, regardless, even if Rachel got on her case for messing up her bed or being lazy about tossing her clothes off.

Rachel had these half-transparent red curtains that she almost always had drawn, giving her entire room this ambient warm glow, in a way that really reminded Chloe of her own room.

It also smelled, overwhelmingly, of Rachel, and whenever Chloe stayed in here long enough, she started to smell like her, too.

There was simply nothing to complain about that part.

Either way, Rachel was soon done putting it away, and walked over to sit down on the bed next to Chloe, then with a groan, lay down even further, hiding her face in one of the oversized pillows that weren’t used for sleeping on, but Rachel still had on her bed for whatever reason.

She made an immediately frustrated sound into it, maybe a scream, even.

It wasn’t really hard to figure out what was stressing her out.

With a bit of a weary sigh, Chloe scooted until she was sitting just behind Rachel, and gently stroked along her sides, letting her have her little vent first before she laid down behind her too, and they started the very familiar spooning process, melting and folding into each other in just the right ways, as though their bodies were made for each other.

They both closed their eyes and just breathed in unison, again.

Eventually, what felt like much later, Rachel sighed wearily.

Her voice sounded pretty exhausted, understandably.

“I feel like shit.”

Chloe hummed flatly.

“I can imagine.”

Rachel frowned before she could help it.

“Can you?”

Chloe rolled her eyes and gave Rachel a bit of a squeeze in her arms.

“Are you forgetting who you’re talking to? Of course I can.”

Rachel huffed, but she knew Chloe was probably right to say and think as she did.

Eventually, she just kind of melted with a sigh, moving one of her hands to gently stroke along Chloe’s snuggling arms.

“… I know, I just …”

Rachel didn’t quite have the words, something which Chloe immediately picked up on, since it was unusual.

Chloe raised herself up, slightly, to look at Rachel more seriously, and not just be stuck with a facefull of hair,

“—just, what?”

Rachel’s eyes flicked sideways to see Chloe looking at her.

“… I don’t know.”

They went forward again, and she sighed.

That wasn’t the answer Chloe deserved.

“… No, no, I do. I’m just – I feel so weird, now.”

Chloe hummed thoughtfully and settled back down to tug Rachel back into her front.

“Weird how?”

Rachel scoffed, gently.

“I thought you said you could imagine, Ms. All-knowing-girlfriend.”

There was a little smile, but just.

Chloe groaned.

“C’mon.”

Rachel nodded, carefully, slowly.

“It’s hard to put into words.”

Chloe grunted.

“I’m not going anywhere. Take your time.”

Rachel nodded again, smiling slightly and letting herself melt in Chloe’s arms while she tried to form the thoughts in her mind so as how to explain it.

Eventually,

“Well, there’s the obvious feeling like shit from all the emotional experiments we did. I could honestly crawl up in a ball and just like, die, forever, and that’d be pretty cool right about now.”

Chloe whined, like a needy dog just deprived of food,

“ _Nooooo_ , don’t do that. Then I wouldn’t have a sexy girlfriend to love.”

It came with another squeeze, and Rachel did appreciate the playfulness, and the general feeling of just being wanted and loved.

She scoffed in amusement.

“Don’t worry. I could never leave you, Chloe.”

It felt appropriate to return the feeling of being loved, and she did the same thing Chloe did by finding one of her hands to squeeze it warmly, too.

Chloe just smiled and let Rachel continue.

“But there’s something else somewhere kicking around in my head.”

Chloe hummed.

“Something else?”

Rachel nodded, gently.

“It’s – hm. Like a feeling of duty.”

It was Chloe’s turn to nod.

“You’ve mentioned thinking you must have these powers for a reason …”

Rachel closed her eyes and sighed contently, always appreciating the moments Chloe paid attention or understood her automatically.

“Yes. There just has to be.”

She brought the hand up that she had been squeezing to kiss, gently – the same burned one.

It deserved a lot more affection than she could give, sometimes.

“Just like there was a reason for you being in my life.”

Chloe thought about that carefully, and sometimes, it was hard to argue that it didn’t feel like destiny she met Rachel at that rock show, all that while ago now.

What felt like an entire lifetime ago – to a point that was honestly hard to remember what it was even like.

And Chloe could clearly understand why someone gifted with, well, magic fucking powers, might decide they have to have some sort of purpose.

But Chloe was aware that sometimes, things just happen, because the world sucked like that, sometimes.

Like Max and her dad leaving her.

Wasn’t any reason for that shit.

Chloe sighed, a bit wearily.

“Well just … don’t kill yourself trying to find it?”

Rachel frowned.

“I wasn’t intending to.”

Chloe shook her head gently.

 

“Were you intending to get stabbed when we went to save Sera?”

 

Rachel groaned painfully.

“Chloe …”

That one hurt, but at the same time, it was much harder to refute.

It cut into her pretty easily and bled away some of the annoyance that Chloe even took it in this direction, since she knew the worry was there for a reason.

But, at the same time, Chloe was frowning.

“I’m serious, Rach.”

She gave her a squeeze.

“We literally practiced today until you broke down into a sobbing mess.”

Rachel went quiet, since that was the truth, and she didn’t have a good defense for it.

It took her a few seconds to even try to.

“Well … I mean, I just can’t sleep on this.”

Chloe nodded.

“And I’m not asking you to.”

Rachel looked slightly to her side, as if trying to look behind her at Chloe,

“Then?”

Chloe shrugged,

“Just don’t go 110% on this.”

Rachel huffed and looked forward again.

“I’m a big girl. I can take it. I _have_ to.”

Chloe did, too.

“You don’t _have_ to do anything.”

Rachel frowned again.

 

“I do. Sometimes, people actually have responsibilities they need to take care of, Chloe.”

 

Owch.

Rachel regretted it the second it came out.

Chloe flinched, clearly pained by that, which only added to the immediate guilt.

“Rach …”

Rachel shook her head and turned around to face Chloe, wrapping her arms around her neck and letting them drape down her back lazily while she buried her face into Chloe’s neck.

“I’m sorry, Chloe … I didn’t mean that.”

Chloe, probably rightfully, kept her frown, though did quite like it when Rachel snuggled in this particular way.

“You sure about that?”

Rachel kissed her neck.

“I am. I’m just – today was really rough on me. I should sleep before I say anything else stupid.”

It was hard to deny that, and Chloe was … mostly fine accepting the idea that Rachel was simply overworked and said something stupid as a consequence.

But that really only just reinforced her worry that Rachel was in fact working herself to death – again.

What was Chloe going to do, though?

Prolong the time her exhausted girlfriend had to stay awake to force the issue?

Rachel was clearly fading fast, especially in the volume and strength she heard in her voice, just … argh.

Chloe sighed.

“Okay.”

She kissed the top of Rachel’s head and started combing through her hair with some fingers – always appreciating how straight and long Rachel’s hair was.

“Let’s get you more comfortable, then … and we can talk about this later.”

Rachel nodded tiredly, and they separated to help each other strip off and get under the sheets, before resnuggling up to each other to get in their positions for the night.

 

Rachel, though, pretended to sleep before she actually found it.

She had some things to think about, after all, and even if she was fairly exhausted, she knew she wouldn’t be able to actually fall asleep until she worked through it.

By now, she perfectly understood Chloe’s worry, and honestly wasn’t sure if she could keep doing this every day until they figured out every nuance of her powers.

And, to be sure, they did make a lot of progress today, like Rachel being able to consistently spawn and put out her fires, as well knock things down with her wind.

They figured out stuff like the fires being separated from Rachel whence spawned, which only further reinforced the need for her to keep the wind power at the ready, but that meant not one but _two_ awfully draining emotions she needed to shift through as quickly as possible.

Could she even reliably do that when the need for her powers presented herself?

What could she even do with the ability to create fire …?

The obvious answers were all prank-related, and while she was _definitely_ going to go through some of them with Chloe later …

… what could the universe possibly want her to do with this?

What problem in the world could she possibly solve?

Too many damn trees?

Not enough headwind?

Maybe if she was creative enough, she could think of ways to stop a car, or maybe surround someone in a ring of fire to keep them stationary – but.

Fire was dangerous, and her control over it felt very tenuous.

If one could even say they had any control over fire to being with.

Maybe – she just needed more practice.

Maybe she would find out she has another power – like maybe she could spawn rain or a thunderstorm or something – that would make it easier to use her fire powers safely.

Whatever it was, she definitely needed more time to think of _why_ she was given these powers.

It was like a puzzle, and she just needed to dedicate the thought until she worked it out.

 

Rachel’s thoughts were derailed by Chloe gently mummering and running her fingers through her hair.

Sometimes, Chloe messed her hair up a bit by doing so, but Rachel always liked the dreamy look Chloe had on her face when she did it, so it was always worth it.

In fact, Rachel just had to open her eyes to see it, and smiled when she did, with Chloe looking exactly in the way that was so cute.

Chloe blinked.

“Uhm – didn’t want to –“

Rachel just smiled a bit wider and moved forward to kiss Chloe.

Gently.

Slowly.

Lovingly.

When they separated, Rachel reburied her face and sighed contently.

“Shhh. Sleep.”

Despite the tempest of thoughts that Rachel still needed to unravel, she was able to fall asleep with Chloe’s comforting arms around her reassuring that an answer was out there, somewhere, somehow.

There was just a little bit of pain on the road to finding out.

Rachel never expected finding out her true purpose in life to be _easy_ , anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max wakes up.
> 
> She snoops.
> 
> Later, Victoria is upset.

When Max woke up, it felt like it was way too damn early in the morning, and her head wasn’t really helping maters with either its slowness or ache.

She groaned before she could help it.

 

“Oh – shush. You can go back to sleep.”

 

Victoria’s voice in the morning always had a reassuring effect, though feeling her separate again and leave the bed similarly felt draining.

Max didn’t really like how much of a point Victoria made to not cuddle whence they woke up, but the ache in her head was more than sufficient to keep her from voicing much more, and although Max was now colder without Victoria’s touch, she still found sleep pretty easily.

She just needed more of it.

 

The next time she woke up, it was _still_ too early, but Max was thirsty.

She threw the blankets off and sat up on the edge of the bed, yawning and shaking her head slightly as if it would help, but of course it didn’t.

Her mouth was tacky, a clear sign that she hadn’t drank enough water, but something that was pretty easy to fix.

Even though Max felt pretty awful, she still managed to work through the fog in her mind and force herself up to walk over to Victoria’s desk and find some water to drink.

She kinda hated this part of partying with Victoria, but at the same time, it was never bad enough to keep her from drinking entirely too much, especially not when Victoria was so accommodating.

But ugh.

It did suck.

The water was intoxicating and she never consumed water in the morning in a dignified way – spilling a little onto her neck and chest in a thoughtless way in her rabid consumption.

When she finished, she just breathed heavily for a second or two, then like Victoria, she crushed the bottle and placed it in the probably too-large collection of water bottles in Victoria’s mini recycling bin she kept nearby.

Seeing all the crushed bottles reminded her quite intimately of Victoria, back to the first time they slept together and Victoria cutely offered her some water to refresh herself with.

Max smiled a bit and slowly crossed her arms to look up to Victoria’s roof with a sigh.

She still did the same thing all the way back then of separating herself from Max, though back then it felt more justified.

Now, though …

Max really wished she would linger.

She wished she could enjoy Victoria’s embrace outside of the context of this awful feeling in her head.

She wanted to fall asleep with her _without_ having sex sometimes, too.

She wanted to spend an entire afternoon just resting and relaxing with her, not even caring if Victoria paid her active attention – so long as they were in contact, so long as they were close.

So long as she could feel her warmth and smell her perfume.

Her smile slowly faded as she sighed and looked down, opening her eyes.

She could picture it and even fantasize about it, but she knew it would probably only stay a fantasy, at least for now.

Maybe Max just got these feelings so quickly since she was inexperienced and Victoria – wasn’t.

But maybe Victoria would get them too, after enough sex.

And it’s not like Max _needed_ it, or that she in any way didn’t enjoy her time with Victoria.

Whatever.

Max slowly uncrossed her arms and looked around Victoria’s room again.

Judging by the light coming in her window, it was still early in the morning, before the sun even fully rose.

One of the few interests Max knew Victoria liked outside of the obvious was running – and Max had no clue how Victoria could manage to exercise when hung over, but it was kind of impressive in a way.

Then again, maybe she was hating life right now, and just forced herself to do it anyway, like Max learned she could do, too.

Max probably wasn’t going to get any more meaningful sleep, and even if she did, Victoria would be back from her morning run soon-ish and probably want her to leave, as she always did in the morning.

Max always wanted to stay, but, whatever.

She still appreciated that being whatever she was to Victoria meant she woke up much more regularly on something vaguely approximating an actual schedule.

It made her gently smile again to think about that impact she had on her.

She wondered if she impacted Victoria in any appreciable way, similarly, but it was so hard to tell.

Victoria was so stubborn and closed-off …

Max blinked, realizing she was literally all alone in her room.

Maybe she could learn more about her by taking a look around?

Find something she was into?

Maybe a few more shared interests would convince Victoria to open up a bit more and allow Max around more often.

Max looked down at herself and realized she was still naked, and while tempting Victoria into more sex when she returned was somewhat tempting itself, Max wasn’t that thirsty.

Anymore, anyway.

She looked to Victoria’s closet and saw it was slightly ajar.

Maybe she could steal one of her shirts?

That’s a thing couples did, right?

Victoria’s style didn’t really mesh with Max’s, but she had to have _something_ she could wear – her closet was huge.

And Max had never seen the whole thing …

Smiling still, she walked over to Victoria’s closet and opened it, immediately impressed by the vast array of options available to her.

Victoria apparently arranged it all by color, which made it easier to find something white, near the end, that would probably be inoffensive to Victoria’s eyes when paired with her ‘mom’ jeans.

She gently shifted through them until she found a mostly-normal looking tee shirt, though putting it on revealed it ended way too soon and showed her belly a little.

Max frowned, not quite liking that exposure, but recognizing that it was a kind of shirt people in the vortex club sometimes wore – especially to parties.

Crop top?

Max wasn’t sure that was right, but it sounded right.

And she lost a few seconds of her life imagining Victoria in this – shaking her head free of the tempting thoughts with a physical head shake again and blushing a little.

… Victoria would probably appreciate her wearing this.

With a childish giggle, Max decided the benefit outweighed the cost, and started looking through the rest of the closet –

Near the bottom were shoes, and of course Victoria had too many of them, but they were a different size and none of them really caught her eyes anyway.

Plus, the point wasn’t to _completely_ dress like Victoria.

Max found some drawers on the far-left side, and idly wondered what might be in them.

Pants?

Did Victoria even _own_ pants?

Max had to find out.

She opened the first drawer and –

Panties.

Max blushed madly and immediately closed it, standing up and looking away.

Okay – that might have been a line.

Max should probably not snoop in the rest of the drawers – she didn’t even know what she’d do if Victoria had lingerie or something hidden away, but spontaneously combusting into flames seemed surprisingly likely.

As she looked away in her shame, she saw something her eyes didn’t catch earlier – a pile of stuff on the other far side of the closet.

There was a reason Max didn’t see it at first though, since Victoria apparently had put some loose clothes over it, which was a very un-Victoria thing to do.

Max was immediately curious – were they dirty? Was Victoria going to donate these? Why were they treated differently –

She pushed the doors of the closet over so she had access to the other side and got down on her knees to inspect.

She brought the first article of clothing up to her face to sniff it – it smelled of Victoria, and Max lost another few seconds enjoying it before she forced herself to put it down.

It still felt a little wrong to enjoy Victoria’s smell, but Max just couldn’t help it, and she just hoped Victoria would never find out she enjoyed it like that.

It would be mortifying.

Either way, it didn’t smell dirty, which only added to the intrigue – the size was Victoria’s, it looked like something she’d wear –

Max frowned.

Maybe she just didn’t like these.

Max looked back to the pile and her eyes caught another interesting thing – some kind of box.

A lock box?

She hurriedly put the clothes down and brushed them aside – and yeah.

It was a small box with an internal lock, and with a huff, Max realized it was locked.

What on earth could Victoria be so invested in hiding she literally locked it in the corner of her closet and hid it with her clothes?

Max had to know she just –

Key?

Where would Victoria hide the key?

Max huffed again and stood up, crossing her arms.

Probably not in her closet.

She was so curious, too – her mind was spinning with thoughts of what she might be hiding in there.

Max looked around Victoria’s room again and wondered where the key was.

If only she knew Victoria better …

Max went to Victoria’s desk and started opening drawers and rummaging, figuring that Victoria wouldn’t anticipate anyone even finding the lockbox.

Surprisingly, Max’s intuition was right, and near the back of the first drawer, Max found an unassuming key that looked like it matched.

Score.

Max was almost giddy as she closed the drawer full of comparatively-not-that-interesting stuff and hurriedly made her way back to the lockbox.

 

“Open, says me!”  

 

Or was it sesame? Max never knew.

Either way, she got down on her knees and easily fit the key in, just as easily unlocking the box and opening it up to see what was inside.

Max’s jaw almost dropped to the floor –

Nerdy stuff!

She saw several comic books and even some little figurines on the top.

Holy crap.

This was _perfect_.

Victoria Chase was a nerd, too, just like her.

Max’s heart kind of skipped a few beats as she immediately fantasized bonding with Victoria over this stuff and getting her to open up some more now that Max already knew anyway –

She closed her eyes and lost another couple seconds.

Once again resorting to a head shake, and smiling wider than she thought she was physically capable of, Max excitedly started going through the box to see if she could identify any of it, or if she’d have to do research before she sprung this on Victoria.

The figurines were of … some sort of girls, very stylized.

Max didn’t recognize where from with a slight frown, and found she was similarly lost on the comics – which upon further inspection weren’t even in English.

Japanese, if Max had to guess.

Hm.

Maybe there would be other stuff she’d recognize deeper in the box – so she started taking some of the comics out, since the box was _just_ big enough to fit them in, and there was clearly more stuff deeper in.

There were a lot of these not-comics, but near the bottom, just when Max was losing hope, she found something … different.

It was like a tome, only it had a weird font and an even weirder name – mercifully in English – “The occvlt of Arcadia”.

Occult?

Like witches?

Holy crap – was Victoria an honest-to-god witch?

That was …

Really cute to Max, for some reason, to think Victoria had interests so nerdy and perverse and so far apart from the image she tried to project.

Endearing.

Max could totally see herself being into this too, if she ever had a reason.

Especially if it came with a talking pet cat.

Max giggled a little with the silly thought and realized she hadn’t even opened the book since the title and cover alone were so shocking, but she fixed that mistake.

As she flipped through it though, it didn’t look like a spell book – whatever those things even looked like – and more of like - a history book?

Duh, Max, it said ‘of Arcadia’.

Max hummed flatly.

Was Victoria interested in the weird stuff that rumored to happen around here?

And all those weird statues?

One was even on campus.

That was a bit less exciting than thinking Victoria was an honest-to-god witch casting spells and putting hexes on people – but.

Despite the fact the book seemed to be mostly dry history, Max was weirdly drawn to it.

Like there was just … something inscrutable about this book drawing her to flip more and more pages.

About half-way through, Max stopped when her eyes – what else – caught something interesting.

_Prior Avatars of Arcadia_

 

Everything about this title was just –

Max suddenly jumped out of her skin when she heard Victoria’s door opening.

Shit shit shit –

She immediately closed what she was holding –

Fuck, she took out the books to get to this one –

There was no way –

Max hurriedly put what she was holding back and tried to stuff it all back in before Victoria could see –

But it was no use.

 

“What the fuck.”

 

Victoria closed the door behind her and quickly made her way to Max –

Her eyes went wide when she saw just _what_ Max was playing with –

“You – you fucking – you –“

She didn’t even know what to say, Victoria felt like she suddenly shaking with anger.

Max helplessly looked up and could do nothing as Victoria leaned over and pulled her away from the closet.

“I’m – I’m sorry! Sorry!”

After getting Max away, Victoria closed her closet fiercely and just stood in front of it, crossing her arms and quietly fuming.

She always hated her anger and how it ruined her control over her composure, but just – god damn it.

Max fucking Caulfield just went through her secrets box.

What all did she see?

Victoria knew she had to have at least seen the anime stuff …

… but what else?

It was violating to know Max went through her things, but that wasn’t really the top worry on Victoria’s mind, and it was an easy thing to fix – she’d just remove the box from her room.

Still, Victoria was just standing there, and Max eventually regained enough composure to stand up.

She didn’t really know what to say, though – Victoria didn’t respond at all to her apologies, probably rightfully.

Max bit her lip.

“I … um.”

Victoria slowly turned around to face her, and despite the fact she was all red and sweaty from running, she was clearly not impressed, and probably about five seconds from tearing into Max.

That hurt more than knowing Victoria caught her snooping – knowing that Victoria was angry at her.

For some reason, that really got caught up in Max’s gut and really just didn’t make her feel good at all.

It also choked away any words, in case she made the situation even worse, and instead just gaped her mouth like the idiot she was.

Victoria looked at her for a few moments, but the anger seemed to leave her when she forced a harsh exhale, looking away and placing a hand on her forehead to rub vigorously at her temples.

“Just … leave, Caufield.”

Max never wanted to leave.

She bit her lip again.

Victoria seemed less angry now – maybe she could salvage this somehow –

“I don’t – I don’t care if you’re into nerdy stuff Victoria, I think it’s –“

Victoria snapped into looking at Max, just as briskly snapping her arm down.

“- Not now.”

She frowned, deeply, eternally.

“ _Leave_.”

One of her hands broke away to point at her door.

Max bit her lip again, but found herself shrinking and giving in – and not just because she liked it when Victoria bossed her around.

She kind of sighed and looked down, knowing this was really all her fault and this was probably one of the better outcomes that could have happened.

She quietly took off the shirt she had borrowed, not feeling like she deserved the reminder of Victoria’s smell for the rest of the day, and gently folded it up to place it on her bed before agonizingly redressing in her old clothes, knowing Victoria’s eyes were on her, knowing she was disappointed.

Max didn’t know what to say.

 

So she just didn’t say anything.

 

Max felt like shit for the entire rest of the day, but obediently turned up to Victoria’s room when she texted her to come over for the night.

 

Victoria had been weird and distant from her for the entire day and it was literally killing Max in such a visceral way she knew she needed to fix things – somehow, someway.

She spent most of the day thinking of ways she might possibly make it up to her, like maybe a gift or something – Max even used her memory to research some of what she had seen, but realized using that now might actually just make Victoria even more upset at her.

But despite her efforts, Max didn’t know if she could offer anything more than a big apology, and she was dreading at how lame and stupid and pathetic she was that she could spend the whole day thinking about it and come up with nothing better.

Here she was, though, apparently being proven the kind of person she was, again.

No wonder Victoria didn’t want to do anything but have sex with her.

Did Max even deserve anything more?

She’d just been standing outside of Victoria’s door, dreading knocking on it and starting a painful conversation, but she was surprised when the door opened anyway and Victoria stopped with some surprise.

The two just awkwardly stared at each other for a few seconds.

Victoria eventually cleared her throat.

“… you were just standing outside my door.”

Max immediately looked away and rubbed at her arm.

“S-sorry. Sorry – sorry sorry.”

Victoria crossed her arms.

“Stop apologizing for everything.”

Max bit her lip –

“Sorry.”

She couldn’t help it.

Victoria frowned but placed a hand on her forehead, rubbing at it vigorously and looking slightly down.

“Max …”

Max eventually looked back to Victoria.

She didn’t know what to say, but … she had to say _something_.

“I mean it. As much as I possibly can. I am so – s-sorry for everything.”

Her eyes flicked away.

“I was just curious about you …”

Victoria kept rubbing for a few more awkward seconds, and eventually stuck her head out past Max to see if anyone else was in the hallway before she placed her hands on Max’s shoulders and tugged her inside her room.

Max made an endearing squeaking noise as this was done, but Victoria didn’t linger on it, and she closed the door quickly afterwards.

Victoria then hesitated for a second or two, just facing the door, before she sighed forcefully and turned around to face Max, crossing her arms again and evening out her face.

“Max. We have to talk.”

Max nodded.

“I know …”

Her eyes went down a bit, but Victoria frowned slightly.

“Look at me.”

Max did.

Victoria put her frown away in response, but it didn’t change her mood much.

“Look – I know you’re curious.”

She frowned.

“Everyone seems to want to know what I’m into.”

Max opened her mouth, but Victoria literally shushed her by placing a finger on her lips and all –

“- not now. Let me finish.”

Max did.

Victoria recomposed herself for a second or two and crossed her arms again with another sigh.

“But you’re not my girlfriend.”

She frowned.

“You’re my fuck buddy.”

Max bit her lip, but allowed Victoria to continue, since it seemed she had more to say, and she did.

“So just – get it out of your head you’re going to learn that kind of stuff about me.”

Victoria’s eyes went away.

“And don’t ever snoop around in my room when I’m not in it.”

They went back to Max.

“Are we clear?”

Max still didn’t know what to say, but Victoria was clearly expecting an answer.

What even could she say?

Max wanted more than what Victoria was offering, but she wasn’t even sure she deserved it anymore.

Would she just screw it up, anyway?

Max’s eyes went down and she felt herself shrinking again.

She screwed up trying to get closer to Victoria so badly, they’d probably never be any closer than this.

“I …”

Max almost sniffled a bit, but when Victoria sighed wearily, she forced her eyes back up to continue.

“… I want to be more than that.”

She really didn’t know where the strength came from to say that, but the thought of Victoria keeping her at arm’s length and just using her for the sex was almost nightmarish to think might be completely realized.

Victoria blinked and clearly was not expecting that response and looked away with a small pouted frown.

Eventually, she broke one of her hands away to pinch and rub at her nose, before hiding her eyes with her hand, and then she just lowered the hand and looked up a bit to sigh more forcefully.

 

“Max …”

 

She sounded so exhausted.

Max felt like she was fucking things up again, but at least Victoria wasn’t actively upset at her.

After what felt like a long time, Victoria looked back to Max.

“That’s not part of the deal.”

Max looked down, as if defeated.

Victoria sounded flat, but firm.

She wasn’t upset, but she wasn’t budging, either.

Max didn’t feel like she was capable of convincing her of anything else.

While she just did nothing, it took another awkward period before Victoria continued again, since she wasn’t expecting Max to just … stand there, looking sad.

Which wasn’t very easy to look at, anyway.

“So – you either drop it and accept that, or …”

Victoria uncrossed her arms, shaking her head.

“… no more sex whenever you want it.”

Max looked up _immediately_.

Even if she wanted more, the idea of losing all contact with Victoria was just impossible to accept now – even if what she was asking felt so painful and made things so much worse.

Max just wished she knew what to say here, what words she could put together to convey these feelings to Victoria and have her understand just what she was going through and how Victoria could make her feel.

If she could know the little flutter her heart did whenever she smelled Victoria’s perfume.

If she could know the way her brain just totally stopped working when Victoria got close and started touching her.

But Max was fucking things up already, like she always did, and there was no way Victoria wanted to know all of that.

 

So the choice of some Victoria or no Victoria was an easy one to make.

 

She nodded, slowly.

“I – okay. We’re …”

It took a breath in and some effort, but Max managed.

“… not girlfriends.”

Victoria stared at her for a few moments, as if seeing if she believed what Max said, but then she smiled and walked forward until they were practically adjacent.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She sounded happier now, but at what cost?

Max at least liked making Victoria happy, instead of disappointed.

“Uhhh …”

Victoria just placed a hand on Max’s shoulder, and Max came alive at the touch, locking her eyes onto Victoria’s.

Victoria just smiled a bit wider.

“There’s still a lot of fun I can have with you …”

Max didn’t know if she loved or hated how her body responded when Victoria touched her and flirted with her, but either way, that’s all it took before she was her putty to play with for the rest of the night – however she wanted to.

 

As it turns out – Victoria didn’t completely forgive Max for snooping, but Max had more than a few opportunities to make it up to her in bed.

Max was only too willing to do whatever it was Victoria wanted.

And she didn’t know how it was possible, but Victoria was simultaneously responsible for making her feel the best things in the world, and the worst.

 

She just tried to cherish the moments at the end – when Victoria possessed her by spooning her and placing her hands on more intimate parts.

Her heart could do its little things as much as she wanted it to, for the rest of the night.

She just wished she could have it in the morning, too.

But Max didn’t deserve that.

She probably didn’t even deserve what Victoria already gave her, and continued to.

Max found herself pretty thankful Victoria seemed to forgive her for snooping, and that she _still_ made her feel this good.

Somehow, she was able to sleep comfortable in her arms, burdened by all her thoughts, but comforted by Victoria’s arms.

 

Victoria, meanwhile, knew she was playing with fire.

She knew she was the second she flirted with Max when they were sober.

She knew she was the second Max tried to cuddle with her in the morning.

She _especially_ knew she was now that Max expressed interest in being … more.

Thoughts that weren’t entirely unpleasant.

But Victoria didn’t want to give all of this up.

She didn’t want to lose the completely adorable way Max just froze like a deer in headlights when Victoria so much as touched her.

She didn’t want to lose the little shiver Max did when she breathed Victoria in.

She didn’t want to lose having her so cutely worn out and exhausted after it all, unable to do much else but lay there like putty for Victoria to idly molest until they fell asleep.

She didn’t even want to lose seeing Max wearing some of her clothes, or finding Max doing something she shouldn’t – therefore deserving punishment.

And maybe, she didn’t want to lose the possibility of something more happening.

 

Even if she knew it would be something she could never be allowed to have.

 

Victoria was playing with fire, and maybe she would get burned – maybe she already did – but she just couldn’t be without this anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are a little tense with Chloe.
> 
> But it's okay; Rachel has a plan.
> 
> Everything is going to work out.
> 
> It has to.

It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment.

Maybe there wasn’t _any_ exact moment, and instead, it was simply a consequence of millions of such smaller moments, which cumulatively meant that the exact moment was felt and implied through innuendo instead of outright as such.

Still.

There was _a_ moment, in Rachel’s head, that she could point to when something changed.

 

A few days after they had discovered that Rachel’s powers had returned to her in an approachable way, they were driving in Chloe’s not-at-all-deathtrap of a truck towards the junkyard.

Chloe had been pretty quiet today and was looking more at the road than anything else which – while probably a good change of pace – registered immediately as unusual to Rachel.

While they could often be quiet around one another, the silence was never pointed or all that heavy – if they weren’t talking, it’s because they already knew what the other was thinking and talking was simply a waste of air.

And maybe that’s what this was, too – Chloe’s slightly pouted look and slightly tense posture wasn’t that unusual.

Maybe it was the Max thing, again, but …

 

Rachel suspected it was something else.

 

Something that Chloe had brought up a few times, all unsuccessfully.

Rachel wasn’t really sure what the right approach to take in response to it was – it had been a long, _long_ time – at least a few years – since Chloe was seriously worried and concerned about her, and they had a meaningful difference in their opinion about something like this.

But Rachel knew for all of their time together, Chloe didn’t want Rachel to have her powers – or at least, she didn’t want her to focus on them.

She didn’t want the big adventure that would come with it.

She didn’t want the risk of losing anything.

She just wanted Rachel, as she was, as she knew her to be, as she fell in love with her as and – maybe that was enough, maybe that was all Rachel ever wanted out of someone at some point.

But increasingly, it felt like Chloe wanted something Rachel couldn’t give her – a stable, uncomplicated future.

Maybe Rachel was over-thinking things, but this is where her gut led her mind, and her gut rarely led her astray.

So, eventually, Rachel sighed a bit wearily and looked towards the road.

 

“I thought you’d be more excited about blowing shit up and setting things on fire.”

 

Chloe scoffed easily at the playfulness, and her little smile was relieving, though her head shake less so.

“You think I’m not?”

She gave Rachel a brief half-serious look, but had to pay attention to the road, too.

Rachel just smiled and inched a bit closer to rest her head on Chloe’s shoulder with another deep sigh, stealing one of her hands even if they had to be used for either steering or shifting – Chloe would just have to make do without, sometimes.

“Chlooooooeeeeee …”

Rachel really drew it out in the way she did, sort of sing-song, when she didn’t get quite the answer she was looking for out of her girlfriend, and Chloe responded in the appropriate way with a grunt.

“Rach, c’mon.”

She sighed.

“We’re doing the thing, aren’t we?”

Rachel nodded, slowly.

“And you’re over here all moody.”

Chloe grunted again and went kinda quiet, though still returned little idle affections when they came.

Eventually, she sighed again.

“I dunno.”

Rachel shook her head a bit.

“You do know.”

Chloe grunted flatly.

“Maybe I do.”

Rachel closed her eyes.

“And?”

Chloe broke her hand away to shift the truck’s gear – into park, since they arrived.

She also broke away from Rachel’s idle resting to try and look at her more seriously.

“I’m just – “

Rachel didn’t really want Chloe to go, but could feel the little tenseness here and there to know something more serious was probably coming, so she easily sat herself back up to look at Chloe appropriately as Chloe’s face cycled through a few expressions before settling on something vaguely troubled.

“- What happened to us just – y’know – chilling?”

Rachel thought to frown, but simply rolled her eyes instead, crossing her arms.

“Magic powers. Next?”

It was still a little playful, but didn’t land in the right way – Chloe frowned a bit and looked uneasily forward to the junkyard ahead of them.

“Like –“

Chloe shook her head a bit,

“- I get it. Magic powers. Big deal.”

Her expression fell and her eyes went down to the steering wheel, which she ran her hands along for a few seconds.

 

“But I don’t just want super hero Rachel, either.”

 

Her eyes, though not her face, looked over to Rachel.

“Y’know.”

They went back to the junkyard, and Rachel had her own little sigh.

“Chloe – c’mon.”

She couldn’t help but frown a bit.

“I’m not just a super hero or whatever – I’m still _me_.”

Chloe kind of scoffed.

“Yeah?”

She looked back to Rachel with her entire face this time,

“When’s the last time we shared a bowl and did nothing for the entire afternoon?”

Rachel’s frown became more pronounced.

“I don’t know – a couple days ago?”

Chloe rolled her eyes.

“More like a week.”

Rachel scoffed, more in disbelief.

“Well – fine – a week – whoop-de-doo ---”

Chloe groaned painfully and looked forward again.

“No. Not ‘whoop-de-doo’.”

She then opened the door to her truck and got out of it, turning around as she left the truck to look seriously at Rachel.

“But I know I’m not winning this argument. So. Whatever.”

She slammed her door closed and walked around to the front of the truck to sit down on it and start working on a cigarette.

Rachel, meanwhile, just sighed, feeling a bit dejected from Chloe’s obvious moodiness.

One of her hands came up to rub at her temples and she just –

She really did not need Chloe acting like this.

She just got magical fucking powers and was trying to figure out what the hell that even meant for her life and what all she could do now and –

Chloe just wanted to smoke weed and do _nothing_.

Even when she went out of her way to help Rachel with practice and stuff there was always –

Those looks.

That concern.

That worry.

 

Chloe never wanted to be there doing that specific thing and was only along for the ride since Rachel dragged her along.

 

So maybe the only way to move forward is for Rachel to _not_ drag her along.

The thought was an odd one, at first, since Chloe was so inexplicably a part of Rachel, now, but –

Rachel removed her hand and looked at Chloe just idly smoking on the hood of her truck.

What good was it doing to include Chloe in all this supernatural stuff?

Just look at what happened.

Rachel doing the very-reasonable thing of wanting to continue practicing her powers was clearly stressing Chloe out – and straining their relationship in a way Rachel really just did not want to have to navigate.

Her relationship with Chloe was never meant to be so damn complicated or hard.

They were soul mates, right?

Do soul mates even _have_ disagreements like this?

It hurt Rachel in a way that was sort of new to have Chloe just moodily storm off like that – even if she hadn’t gone very far - since for once, it was _Rachel_ who was making _Chloe_ feel bad – and that ought to be like, illegal, or something.

Rachel did not want that happening again, and the only logical way towards fixing that is making Chloe feel like she was spending the time she wanted to around Rachel.

That just meant …

Ugh.

Things needed to be shifted around – priorities rearranged – but Rachel could do this.

She had to.

She wasn’t going to sacrifice _either_ Chloe _or_ her powers – she was just going to find some way to make it all work.

And, with a smile, she had a pretty good idea now of how to get a head start about that, so sighing, relieved, Rachel closed her eyes for a few seconds and then got out of the truck herself.

She smoothly walked in front of Chloe, stole her cigarette to take a hit of it herself, and then gently kissed her girlfriend on the lips after expelling the smoke.

It was still smoky, but still enjoyable.

Chloe just looked at her seriously, as if wondering if Rachel was just going to use affection to try and pretend nothing was wrong, and Rachel kept her smile.

“Hey.”

Chloe blinked.

“Yeah?”

Rachel sighed contently again, closing her eyes and sort of leaning into Chloe – colliding their foreheads and rubbing gently, giving Chloe her cig back and rubbing at her shoulders gently and slowly.

“I think a bowl of weed and fucking off in the clubhouse sounds pretty good, about now …”

Chloe blinked again and didn’t refuse the affection but still seemed a bit stiff and skeptical.

“You’re kidding.”

Rachel laughed gently.

“I _never_ kid with you, Chloe.”

Chloe just groaned but had to admit it was pretty nice to feel Rachel rubbing at her shoulders and being all warm and all – even if she wasn’t completely convinced yet.

“Pullin’ a pretty hard 180 here, Rach.”

She didn’t sound convinced, either, which made Rachel pause in her rubbing to just sort of sigh wearily and go quiet for a few seconds.

While Chloe always understanding her usually was just flatly a good thing, it now proved to be a little annoying – like she could see through what Rachel was trying to do.

Maybe some more sincerity would help.

She brought one of her hands down to very gently stroke along Chloe’s collar bones, more out of idle habit than any sort of intentional thought.

“Is it so hard to believe I want to do what makes you happy?”

Chloe grunted a bit, slightly yielding to the reasoning and continued affections.

“I mean … after this week … a little.”

Damn.

That … did not feel good.

This was eating away at Chloe so much she couldn’t believe Rachel wanted to do this simply because it would make Chloe happy?

Well – Rachel had been insistent prior to this, and they both could be stubborn sometimes – so maybe that’s more of what Chloe was talking about.

Either way, Rachel sighed a bit too wearily and pulled herself up to look down seriously at Chloe.

She crossed her arms.

They looked at each other for a few brief moments, and –

Rachel softened her expression.

Chloe did much the same.

Rachel raised her eyebrows, slightly.

Chloe did much the same.

Rachel held the look for a few seconds before continuing.

“You know you don’t mean that.”

Chloe sighed a heavy thing and looked down for a second or two, kicking her boots.

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

Rachel smiled gently and leaned forward again to place a kiss on Chloe’s forehead.

“Then screw it. Let’s forget all this bullshit and relax.”

Chloe scoffed, amused, and dropped her cigarette looking back up to Rachel.

“You make a tempting offer …”

She smiled, gently.

So did Rachel.

Rachel then uncrossed one of her hands, extending it towards Chloe, and Chloe only looked at it briefly before taking it, standing up, and doing a little jittery stretch afterwards.

She then looked plainly at Rachel.

 

“Alright. Let’s rock’n’roll.”

 

Rachel smiled wider and turned around to just start making her way to the clubhouse and Chloe followed automatically.

But - Rachel could see little signs.

Chloe forked her hands into her pockets and looked around the junkyard idly as they walked, when she would normally be rather obnoxiously close in an otherwise endearing way.

They were both quiet.

The air between them didn’t feel quite settled, and Rachel hated it, but she knew it would get better whence they got to the clubhouse and Chloe had some weed – and affection.

Inside the clubhouse Rachel found herself sort of automatically relaxing, finding pleasantly distracting thoughts in all the little mementos all around the clubhouse – the marks on the walls, the graffiti, the random junk that Chloe insisted upon keeping for some inscrutable reason –

And then their, by now, well worn-in couch.

Just walking into here released some tension Rachel wasn’t even aware she was holding in her shoulders.

Chloe seemed to notice, though, coming up behind her and placing her hands gently on Rachel’s shoulders, getting closer to one of her ears.

“You just gonna stand there?”

A little playful, but with a blink, Rachel realized she literally just stopped in her tracks.

She shook her head with a small scoff.

“No. Just tricking you into touching me.”

She giggled and Chloe rolled her eyes, but even that small exchange felt like their old dynamic returning, at least somewhat.

They made their way to the couch and settled down onto it – though Chloe remained somewhat stiff and tense as Rachel snuggled into her side.

It didn’t bother Rachel too much.

She just took to packing a pot pipe.

Eventually, Chloe kind of smirked.

“No fire crap this time. You burned all of our weed away last time.”

Rachel scoffed, but was smiling wider.

“Excuse _me_.”

She stopped to pat herself down and pull out a lighter, brandishing it.

“No powers allowed in here. Only us.”

Chloe smiled wider, too.

 

It was later in the day when Rachel was laying lazily down, her head in Chloe’s lap, looking up either at the ceiling or to Chloe’s face.

Chloe just kinda looked forward, off into nothing, just as lazily stroking Rachel’s head and hair every so often but otherwise just enjoying the intimacy.

The weed and the snuggling slowly unwound them both until now, where they were just sort of melted into each other again.

And it felt right.

This position was Rachel’s favorite, and it was just so deeply relaxing to feel Chloe’s fingers occasionally flowing through her hair.

Rachel – genuinely – forgot about her powers and all of that urgent crap she had to deal with a few times, and maybe that was the thing that got Chloe to finally relax herself.

Or maybe Chloe just realized Rachel was serious, and she was totally willing to do this now to make Chloe happy and de-stress her.

The magic stuff just …

It had to come separately.

Rachel would figure it out and maybe re-involve Chloe in it after they stabilized a bit more and Chloe was happy and content with their relationship again, since by then, it probably wouldn’t be so damn stressful.

And this whole period in the clubhouse was deeply therapeutic and important for Rachel’s mental health in a way she didn’t even realize until she had those genuine moments where just – nothing was on her mind but relaxing, the weed, and her girlfriend.

Rachel needed this.

She closed her eyes with a small sigh.

She needed to figure out her powers too, though.

She hadn’t given it too much thought since they entered, mostly trying to soothe Chloe and convince her they really were just going to do nothing for this afternoon but enjoy each other’s company and the weed.

Both Chloe and Rachel wanted time like this and now –

Rachel didn’t know where the time would come from to practice with her powers.

Maybe she could sneak it in?

Tell Chloe she was visiting friends or something?

It’s not like Chloe would tell her not to – or get suspicious.

Maybe she could wake up earlier.

Lose a bit of her sleep.

It’s not like Chloe would even be awake to notice.

It felt weird to plan for such a serious thing without Chloe – maybe even lying to her to enable it – but at the same time, was that simply the cost of keeping her happy?

Rachel just couldn’t be the source of Chloe’s stress like she was earlier.

She just couldn’t.

Chloe deserved all the happiness in the world and Rachel couldn’t bear to detract from that, and she completely understood why helping her practice was stressing her out – since it’s not like she had any magic powers herself or anything.

And this whole thing was pretty emotionally exhausting.

But – Rachel could emotionally exhaust herself and the come in here and just relax with Chloe.

She could do both.

She knew it.

She had to, even.

It simply wasn’t an option in her mind to either sacrifice Chloe time or power time.

And when she looked up and saw Chloe’s beautiful, completely stoned face, she could only giggle a little and shift around so her head faced Chloe’s belly.

And sneak under her shirt to kiss and rub her face against the skin there.

Chloe blinked.

“Hey …!”

But she was giggling and squirming a little, and so was Rachel.

 

Chloe was still a little skeptical – but Rachel knew little moments like these would eventually get their dynamic back to normal.

 

And every one of them relaxed her a bit more and helped her to convince about Rachel’s seriousness.

 

The next morning, Rachel decided to wake up two hours early – and her body was not happy at her, feeling a little achy, and Chloe was not happy at her, making adorable whining sounds – but Chloe was so disinterested in doing much but sleeping this early it was easy to get her to back to sleep.

Rachel … did not want to lie to Chloe about this.

If Chloe ever got it in her head to ask her directly – well – Rachel would come clean about what she was doing.

But Rachel wasn’t going to be super forthcoming with the plan otherwise.

It still didn’t feel super good as she got dressed and left her dorm room – giving one small look back to the sleeping Chloe – but it felt workable.

Rachel yawned and walked, getting almost to the stairs before she realized she was going without Chloe, so … no truck.

Ugh.

With a groan, she went back to get her skateboard from within her dorm and had half a mind to ask Chloe for her keys, but not wanting to disturb her sleep again, and besides, it had been a while since Rachel did a lot of skateboarding.

 

It had been a while since she had a reason to.

 

The sun still wasn’t up, and the air was nice and cool – brisk.

It felt nice as she flew through the mostly-empty streets.

 

Really, it was just too early to be up, and Rachel’s body was still complaining – but she’d get over it.

Rachel thought of places she might be able to practice her powers.

The obvious place for some peace and quiet – the junkyard – didn’t feel quite right to go to without Chloe, and if Chloe ended up going there instinctually … that probably wouldn’t be a good outcome.

The woods all around Arcadia Bay – while an obvious place to test her wind powers in relative privacy – was just as obviously a poor place to test her fire powers.

Somewhat because of Chloe’s regular teasing about it, the fire she caused all those years ago never quite left her mind, like a little thorn in the back, somewhere.

A little doubt.

If she _was_ given these powers for a reason, that reason certainly wasn’t to cause death and destruction and burn forests down.

Even if the briefest of thoughts of being a super villain was somewhat entertaining.

 

Eventually, Rachel settled on the beach, since sand wasn’t flammable, and although getting a bunch of it kicked up from wind would probably be irritating, it would be a small price to pay.

There was just something deeply romantic about the beach, too.

Maybe it was the Cali girl in her, but there were few things more relaxing and intimate than a late night or early morning with just the waves gently crashing and the sometimes quiet sometimes loud ambience that came with that – like the birds.

Her first date with Chloe was here, and that fact she never allowed to be forgotten – with each such important anniversary including at least some time on the beach, walking along it like it was the first time they were seriously getting romantic and dedicated.

And that context was hard not to have in mind as Rachel left her skateboard behind and started walking onto the sand proper.

It was hard not to be a little melancholy as she crossed her arms and started walking down more south – where there would be even fewer chances of someone spotting her.

She came out here for her powers, but …

She looked out to the sea with her sigh.

She sure would enjoy Chloe being here right now, too.

The change of scenery might do them both some good.

But – no.

Rachel shook her head and started walking with more intent.

Chloe drew her line, and Rachel accepted it.

She didn’t even really begrudge her for it.

 

Rachel tried to put thoughts of Chloe out of her mind, then, since it wasn’t going to do her much good getting stuck in that particular loop.

 

Thankfully, she had quite a bit of practice now of forcing her mind into a certain headspace, so the gear shift wasn’t too hard.

However – she did it differently.

Rachel was completely aware of how much she relied on Chloe earlier, meaning she probably couldn’t afford to get into as severe emotional turmoil, since she’d just end up crying all alone on the beach or something, devastated.

And maybe – maybe that’s just something she needed to suffer through, but …

She’d at least work her way into it, if so.

So when Rachel started to think of her dad this time, she tried to avoid some of the worst parts of the story and focus more on more general annoyance and anger at him.

Some thoughts of her not-mother married to her father, too – since her part in the whole sordid business was merely complicity, something much less to get worked up over.

No less betraying, but not nearly as rage-inducing.

Rachel thought about it and stewed for some moments, not quite sure how to scale just how angry she was and how angry she should be, but was noticeably more tense when she opened her eyes – nails digging into her arms and all.

She looked at some random garbage discarded on the sand in front of her and thought not just of its demise but further annoyance at the carelessness of the person to discard it and –

 

“Jesus!”

 

Rachel had to jump back – literally jump, back – at the fire that spawned – even though what was ignited was not that much tinder, the fire that it spawned seemed to go up well higher than Rachel was tall, with a heat that Rachel felt much more immediately and viscerally than the others.

Such a massive fire was not sustained well by small pieces of trash, and soon it charred to death and the fire burned out.

The surprise was enough that Rachel only just now realized the tide was coming up to her shoes and it took a small squeak from her before she walked out of the path of the tide.

Damn.

That was way too much for so little.

She saw the piece of trash and it was totally consumed – nothing more than black ash now – and even that part of it was different.

Usually the fires she spawned took a few seconds to burn through things …

 

Frowning a little, Rachel started walking down the shore again, not quite sure what the correlation or causation was here.

But the next time she stopped and burned something – the same result came.

Rachel put in much less emotional exertion and got a much greater result out of it – but what she got out of it was somehow even more scary than her other set of fires.

The intensity, the color – everything about it was different.

This fire consumed more eagerly and aggressively.

 

Rachel started walking again, now rubbing at her forehead.

This didn’t make sense – the only difference was the fact she was at the beach, and …

Chloe.

Rachel stopped in her tracks.

That … couldn’t be it, could it?

Not that Rachel was a witch or anything, but she was pretty sure that’s not how magic powers work.

Yet – as Rachel thought about Chloe being hurt by this greater fire power, she was similarly rebuffed by a much more powerful strike of wind that was both less precise and more forceful – almost knocking her off her damn feet.

Fuck.

But in as much as it was scary how these powers were suddenly more impactful – it was also kind of enticing, exciting.

If this was the _low_ end of her emotional exertion … what was the _high_ end?

Could she make a pillar of fire?

A hurricane with wind?

 

… what about both?

 

Rachel was almost giddy as she skipped down the beach, eager to find the next piece of trash to explode with her new-found strength.

Surely there was a lot to unpack in _why_ she was suddenly so much powerful, but that’s just not where her mind was – not right now.

She could spend all the time in the world thinking about things later.

Now was for feeling.

Rachel collected a few pieces of trash with her hand – once again pulling her overshirt down a bit so she wasn’t touching it directly – and stood back more than a little bit.

She also placed the trash closer to the tide – thinking maybe if what she spawned was too massive, the water would help to put it out, maybe with some encouragement from her wind.

And then, she closed her eyes tightly, breathed out a shaky, uncertain breath, before focusing.

The fear – the doubt – the worry – the nagging thoughts of Chloe – all had to be purged, and her emotional state had to be exact.

Snapping between the two polar opposite emotions was never easy on her emotionally, and she basically became dead to the world while she focused deeper, and deeper – allowing her mind to travel down what were normally pretty awful and dark paths to specifically shape her emotions.

Her dad.

His cheating.

Everything that came from it.

 

The fucker needed to _burn_.

 

When she opened her eyes and wished for that pile to ignite – the desire wasn’t mercurial, or uncertain – it was absolute, and focused, almost a like a need.

And, obediently, the pile of trash didn’t just ignite – it _exploded_ in a plume of fire, a massive wall that shot straight up –

The heat was so intense –

The entire beach had to have been lit up –

But Rachel had trained, and though facing a literal wall of fire was terrifying, she immediately snapped her brain into the awful set of emotions – the thoughts of hurting innocents with this, particularly Chloe – the new worry of overly-straining her relationship with Chloe –

“Argh!”

It was a lot, and the strain was intense –

But a gust of wind came at her all the same –

Only Rachel forgot –

This wind was blunter and collided with _her_ too –

The massive wall of fire, already dying off a little from lack of fuel, started to charge right at her, like an angry unnatural hellspawn –

 _Fuck_ –

“Fuck!”

Rachel wasn’t even sure what emotions her mind was going through as the fire continued to charge right at her, but instead of colliding – it started to wrap around her, like a cloak from the devil itself – spiraling up and around, up and around –

It was a dazzling, intense, overwhelming sight, and Rachel was pretty sure she burned herself a little bit –

As the fire left her, extinguishing itself from a lack of fuel, Rachel kind of fell to her knees, panting a little.

That took a lot out of her – a lot more than it should have.

This … feeling – Rachel remembered immediately the last time she felt this viscerally drained.

She closed her eyes.

The last time she felt like this …

Rachel could remember it so clearly.

So viscerally.

Rachel slumped a bit more and fell until she was on her hands and knees and she grasped at the sand.

Her hands were shaking, quivering almost from the adrenaline, and re-living things wasn’t exactly making her calm down.

In fact –

The last time she felt like this –

Rachel grunted and shoved herself up onto her knees, unconsciously tossing the sand forward, off into the sea –

She opened her eyes and just –

She exerted herself with something akin to a deep, visceral and loud grunt – just – something to get the feeling out.

Her breathing was so heavy now but at the same time – it was like she had just ran a thousand miles, and her body was full of all of the feel-good juices associated with it.

She felt fucking alive.

In a way she hadn’t in a long, long time.

It was strong, an overwhelming desire to _live_ and feel _more_.

She had to do _something_.

So Rachel jumped onto her feet, and, having the briefest of moments of self-awareness that this was probably a pretty strange and hard-to-explain sight, so she did look around to make sure that no one was actually watching her and – no, thankfully she was all alone.

Slightly relieved, she looked down to see the fruits of her little fire spin – beautiful ash, spread all around her in concentric circles, gradually waning out from the center.

It made her gasp a little like –

 _She_ did this.

 _She_ just spawned the fire and the wind and – literally controlled the elements with her _mind_ and –

 

She was an actual force of nature. _Invincible_. Untethered. Unbound. Free.

 

But she wasn’t just going to sit here and think about it – no - she wasn’t going to feel like this forever, and the feeling had to be capitalized.

So jittering on her heels a little, Rachel took off, sort of half-running half power-walking until she found find more things to burn and put out.

In this state, the time to concentrate came down significantly, but it sort of morphed how she interacted with her thoughts and feelings and the fires; even though it wasn’t necessary, whenever she spawned a fire, she gestured at it with her hand thoughtlessly and gave a brief shout-yelp of frustration – as if it would encourage it even more.

She didn’t even fucking know what she was doing anymore, but it felt amazing every single time another wall shot up from the ground and was just as quickly dismissed – like –

Everything yield to  _her_.

She was in control of  _everything_.

 

After a few more fires Rachel bit her lip, closed her eyes, and tightly clenched her fists, shaking with more adrenaline and purpose than ever before.

 

There was still one thing she could do.

 

Everything about her clenched down even more as she thought to put even more of herself into these fires – just to see how awe-inspiring they could get.

She remembered the last time she genuinely burned the forest down –

She remembered the seething _hate_ that it required –

The intense, crushing hopeless of her situation –

Of her future –

Of her family life –

And, feeling more than thinking, she opened her eyes and released all of the tension – all of the stress – all of the agony in her mind and her body with a _scream_.

 

She didn’t even fucking know what she was screaming at, and it didn’t fucking matter.

 

Fires came anyway – now turbulent and confused – whipping around all around her with a circular draft of wind this set of emotions apparently created.

She screamed and she screamed she screamed –

Overwhelming herself with the heat, the intensity, the feeling –

Until everything was gone, the fires put themselves out with nothing left out of her to feed off of –

And she fell to her knees.

 

She fell down even more – to her hands – and seriously had to struggle just to stay upright.

 

But everything was drained out of her – nothing was left – no thoughts to think, no emotions to feel – no strength to carry herself on.

So she pathetically collapsed, even more, colliding with the ground with something akin to a muted groan.

But like the last time she exerted herself in this way, she was out before she even recognized the feeling of her face connecting with the ground.

 

She was out, like a fire that had just been snuffed.

 

Only without someone like Chloe to keep her safe.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max spirals a little.
> 
> Victoria has to notice.
> 
> They have a difficult, but ultimately necessary conversation.
> 
> Max is over the fucking moon.

As the days ticked by, Max wasn’t entirely sure if she was coping well with Victoria’s distance or not.

On the one hand, Max was already incredibly lucky to even be with someone like Victoria in the first place, but on the other, Max could never stop herself from yearning for more from her.

She just couldn’t fully understand why Victoria didn’t want to be girlfriends, why she insisted on this distance, why she always kicked Max out or closed off when Max brought it up.

Victoria just had these vague offerings of it not being appropriate for them, or another round of insisting they were only fuckbuddies and nothing more than that.

Did that mean, somehow, Max just wasn’t girlfriend material?

That literally all her value was in the fact Victoria liked sleeping with her?

And nothing else?

It wasn’t a very pleasant thought, but …

Max hadn’t exactly been a Casanova before Victoria came along.

And she knew that she was indeed lucky to be with someone as popular and attractive as Victoria – her mind never allowed her to forget that, and how unreasonable it was for her to want more.

But logic just didn’t work to dissuade her feelings or heart.

She could tell herself it’s all she really deserved and she was lucky for getting what she already had, but it didn’t still the doubts or the nagging thoughts when she was alone, trying to concentrate on her homework, waiting on a reply from Victoria before she could head over.

The worst, or maybe best, part about this whole thing is just how much of a drug Victoria was.

How intoxicating her touch and smell was.

How distracting her presence was.

If Max could just spend more time around her, drinking in her addiction, then she could easily convince herself that whatever Victoria called them was fine enough.

She didn’t technically need to be called a girlfriend, so long as she had the presence and the touch.

But … she didn’t.

She had Victoria in slivers, snippets – brief moments during lunch, brief moments in between shared classes, brief moments over text, and more intimate moments on some nights.

It was never enough.

But each taste was enough to stave off the _need_ , like a junkie getting a fix for the night.

Maybe it wouldn’t satisfy – and maybe indulging made the withdrawal tomorrow even more intense – but the experience was always so amazing in the moment it was impossible to turn down.

No one could make Max feel like Victoria did.

Not even Max herself, late at night, and she had certainly tried when suffering in a particularly acute way from a lack of Victoria.

And Max just couldn’t bring herself to make some sort of ultimatum, to either insist Victoria give her more or they would break it off – mostly because Victoria had already given her one in reverse, and in the moment, the idea of separating entirely from Victoria was just impossibly paralyzing.

But Max just didn’t know what to do.

If she needed more, and she couldn’t ask for more, and she couldn’t demand more … what could she do?

If Victoria would just reject her anyway?

If Max kind of knew every time she indulged in her desires with Victoria she was getting more and more attached while Victoria just wasn’t?

Eventually, a sort of hopeless dread started to kick in and hang over Max, stilled when Victoria was giving her attention, but otherwise always somewhere in the back of her mind, distracting.

This was only going to get worse and worse and Max just couldn’t do anything about it.

Victoria would eventually realize this, get upset, and demand for them to break up or whatever – to stop having sex, to deny Max what slivers she got.

And Max just –

She wasn’t sure she could handle that.

Yet it felt so inevitable, so obvious.

Victoria would eventually realize.

Max would eventually slip up.

Something would give, eventually, and Max knew that something wouldn’t be Victoria, not from everything she’d said and done prior.

 

Which, somehow, did the impossible – it penetrated Max’s otherwise golden mood while in Victoria’s arms after a long and eventful night.

Basking in Victoria’s touch, in her bed, in her room, after being used by her, was just such a uniquely relaxing and intoxicating experience – it almost always made Max forget about everything, about all her hang-ups and insecurities and whether or not she would do well in school and what this whole business with Victoria even _was_ –

But there was something about tonight and the chemistry going on in Max’s head that it just didn’t.

Max couldn’t just simply enjoy this moment since she knew it was limited and they were on borrowed time.

This would be one of the last times she’d get to enjoy Victoria before she found out.

One of the last moments she’d get to smell her so intimately, in her bed, in her arms, surrounded by everything about her.

And Max sniffled a little, suddenly gently crying in a way she really didn’t want to, but simply couldn’t help.

But it was a quiet sort of thing – not open and pathetic sobbing, more private and localized, so Max wasn’t too worried about waking Victoria up from it and having to explain it – surely resulting in the very thing Max’s mind was dreading would happen.

Unfortunately, it felt even worse when she realized that now, not even Victoria’s arms would be enough to keep her from these awful doubts and thoughts – how she couldn’t simply just expose her belly, let Victoria do what she may, and Max would feel alright for the night, at least.

When she realized that she wouldn’t be able to convince herself to keep doing this as a coping mechanism, since it didn’t even give her the high she needed to sustain the withdrawal anymore.

And how ultimately hopeless and doomed this all was.

 

Which may have – slightly – made her crying a bit more intense.

 

Eventually, Victoria stirred, and Max thought to shut herself up, but it kind of just felt like delaying the inevitable, and it was hard to still tears whence they started, anyway.

At least Victoria getting upset at her for crying would be easier for her to handle if it went poorly than her getting upset at forcing the relationship in a certain way.

 

Victoria often woke up to pleasant things with Max in her arms, or at the very least, the comforting familiarity of their position.

The slow way her chest rose and fell.

The gentle smell of her hair.

The way it even got a little messy.

The familiar warmth and stillness of her slumber.

 

Victoria did not wake up to a pleasant thing tonight.

 

Whence she processed Max crying – and it was a proper sort of cry, not pathetic sobbing, but not restrained either – there was this deep twist in her gut, a pull at her heart, a stab at part of her she didn’t think existed.

She immediately felt guilty, like this was her fault somehow and – yeah, it probably was – usually people don’t cry after they have sex with you.

She had a vague idea of what it might be, even in the distracted fog mind space of having just woken up, something Max had broached a few times prior and Victoria always shied away from.

But – priorities.

Victoria had already been still and quiet and thinking for too long – even if it had only been a few seconds since she woke up.

Max was crying.

That needed to be dealt with, first.

With some hesitation, Victoria slowly lowered her head to boop at the top of Max’s.

 

“… hey.”

 

Victoria didn’t really know where to go from here – stupid emotional conversations were never really her strong suit.

Max just sniffled and kept crying, in a way that definitely was not reassuring, and kept tugging at heart strings Victoria swore did not exist.

Ugh.

“C’mon. Shhh.”

It was sort of – instinctual.

Victoria didn’t really know what she was doing, but she could hazard a guess at what might help calm Max down, even if it was something she absolutely swore she would not indulge herself in.

Open affection.

Victoria very gently wormed Max around so they were facing each other, then hugged her, working entirely on her gut and trying to ignore the part of her screaming at her to stop before things got even more confusing and fucked and emotional.

But – Max was crying.

That conflict in her was more-or-less defeated with that simple fact, at least for now.

Max was easily slotted into her front and just as easily rested her face on Victoria’s collarbones and neck.

Their height difference wasn’t that severe, but Max always liked to sleep a few inches lower just so she could slot herself into Victoria like this, and Victoria couldn’t say she hated it.

Especially not the way Max’s breathing unevenly collided against her neck, at first hot and full of feelings, but slowly calming down.

Victoria restrained a shiver.

It felt so much better when they were facing each other …

Fuck.

Max, initially, had her arms folded up by her chest, almost like a fetal position, but as Victoria kept holding her, Max’s arms slowly unfolded and came to hug Victoria too, albeit weakly.

Victoria still didn’t really know what to do, but …

Max wasn’t crying – or at least – not as much.

Her breathing was a bit easier – Victoria could physically feel it, both in her chest and in the way Max’s breathing ran down her exposed neck.

She couldn’t just hug her like this and pretend everything was fine, right?

Max was just crying in her bed.

That was … kind of a big deal.

They probably needed to talk about it?

Ugh.

Victoria had an even better idea what it was about, now that she had a few moments to think, and definitely did not want that sort of conversation, now of all times, but … if avoiding it meant she had to deal with a crying Max?

Was that worth it?

Fuck.

Victoria realized she was just in too deep, now – she liked Max enough she couldn’t callously shove her away when she cried, like she should have done.

And hearing her cry and cry and cry would only feel worse and worse the more they did this, the more Victoria knew on some level that Max’s misery was entirely her fault.

Maybe even in a way the sex couldn’t even distract away enough from, in the same way it apparently wasn’t enough for Max anymore, either.

This was just not part of the plan.

None of this was.

But none of the alternatives felt … good.

If Victoria pushed Max away, then she would know it would devastate her, and leave her crying probably even more than just on one night – and with nothing to physically comfort her, no Victoria she could melt into like this.

And if she kept the status quo, that meant seeing more of a crying Max, which just frankly did not feel like an option.

So …

What was left?

Let her closer?

It was the only other option, really, yet with it, came a lot of bullshit that Victoria wasn’t sure she wanted to expose herself to.

And when this would inevitably end, doing all of that would just be … miserable.

And that end was inevitable, not up for debate or discussion – it _would_ happen, it was just a matter of when.

But maybe Victoria _already_ fucked up and played too much with what she knew to be fire – maybe this was the only route forward now, and the bullshit emotions she’d have to deal with were just a necessary evil.

Maybe she could share a little bit of the pain Max was feeling now, just to make her feel better.

 _Ugh_.

Victoria breathed harshly into Max’s hair.

By now, Max had mostly stilled her breathing and crying, but hadn’t gone to sleep – occasionally jittering around and repositioning various parts of herself, as if trying to get comfortable _to_ sleep – but –

There was this air around them that felt unresolved, since Max had just cried, after all.

Victoria unthinkingly nudged at the top of Max’s head, and Max pulled her head away just enough to look up – and that sight was not easy, with her eyes still a little red and irritated and some dried streaks down her cheeks.

She also didn’t smile when she looked up, like she always did.

Instead, those corners of her mouth were weighed down with the very same air that kept Victoria from simply falling asleep herself.

For a few awkward moments they just looked at each other, Victoria trying to settle the dispute in her mind about how to go forward with stuff, Max wondering what Victoria would do since – it’s not like she would do anything on her own.

Eventually, Victoria bit her lip, sighed, and decided to bite the bullet.

“Why were you crying?”

Max’s eyes went down.

She mumbled something towards Victoria’s chest.

Victoria sighed.

“Using your words, Max.”

Max’s eyes flicked up and she tried to find comfort in Victoria’s gaze like she normally did, but it just wasn’t there with this stupid fog of doubt in her mind.

“If I uhm …”

She looked down again, but tried to keep her voice projected,

“… tell you, you’ll get mad at me … and junk …”

Victoria sighed curtly, forcefully.

That more-or-less confirmed it, but Victoria wasn’t going to take that plunge without a 100% confirmation,

“… well I’ll get mad at you if you don’t tell me, too.”

Victoria nudged her again,

“So _spill_ , Caulfield.”

Max didn’t look up, but did appreciate the little nudges here and there, and had to admit Victoria’s embrace was even better when they were facing each other and Max felt more like her equal and less like her toy.

“I …”

Max frowned a bit, now looking to the side.

“Promise you won’t get _too_ mad at me …?”

She slowly looked up to Victoria, eyes more pleading than she realized, and Victoria immediately frowned, but then corrected her expression when she saw it made Max just look away again.

“Hey.”

Victoria kept her face as level as possible.

“Look at me.”

Max did, eventually, sort of awkwardly, but at least Victoria’s flat expression wasn’t too discouraging.

Victoria hesitated.

“Tell me what’s wrong. I’ll … try.”

She looked away.

“To not get upset. Or whatever.”

Victoria’s eyes came back.

Max bit her lip but was never really all that good at resisting Victoria anyway, which was kind of the whole problem.

“I keep …”

Max closed her eyes and breathed in deep – since, well – this had the potential to ruin everything,

“… dreaming about, like, cuddling with you … without like – all this s-sex stuff - before it.”

Max didn’t want to open her eyes to see how much that probably annoyed Victoria, so she didn’t, instead just biting her lip again for a few seconds.

“… and I know I can’t just like … tell you that … since you …”

She kind of slumped, folding back into Victoria’s front,

“… don’t like me that much.”

That was almost like a punch to Victoria’s gut in a way that was not expected and immediately worrying.

It was then that Victoria realized not only did she care about Max, but she cared about Max’s thoughts _about_ herself, too, and the idea that Max thought Victoria just didn’t like her was – wrong.

Violating.

Victoria wanted to correct this mistake, to make Max well aware of the fact she was more than liked, but their emotions had to be tempered for the cruel reality that this world contained.

But expressing that involved …

More than Victoria was capable of.

She at least immediately understood why Max had gotten so bad she was crying.

Still – she had to say _something_.

Victoria released her lip, unaware prior that she had been biting hard down on it,

“Max …”

Victoria sighed wearily,

“… I …”

Do?

It was right there.

She could say it.

Maybe she even wanted to.

“… don’t hate you, or anything.”

Or maybe she didn’t.

Fuck.

Max nodded gently, though, seemingly unaware of the tension in Victoria’s mind, and simply stuck in her own,

“I know … I know … I’m overreacting and … ugh. I’m so - _stupid_.”

Victoria groaned and silenced Max by hugging her more intently and resting her chin on Max’s head again, letting her enjoy the rare bouts of intimacy that Victoria only just now realized was probably making this whole situation even worse, since Max just admitted to wanting exactly this.

But there was no path but forward, anymore.

She let them both understand the moment for a few quiet seconds.

“… it’s not that, Max.”

Max made a thoughtful sound but didn’t want to break away from their snuggled position this time.

Instead, she just spoke into Victoria’s neck, which was frankly an amazing slightly-ticklish feeling that Victoria definitely didn’t immediately enjoy.

“… then … what? What is it …? Why can’t I … s-stay?”

Max so wanted to kiss Victoria’s neck right there to emphasize her feelings, but absolutely could not do anything remotely so bold right now.

Victoria mostly thought about how to phrase it for a few seconds, trying to not shiver at the feeling of Max’s breath on her neck again.

But god it was just so nice.

Maybe she could vocalize the other part of her reasoning that had failed to make it past her lips so far.

“When we do that … things are going to … y’know, change.”

It still felt awkward, though.

Max barely nodded again.

“… I know.”

Victoria huffed.

“And do you know what’ll happen when we have to break up?”

Max thought about it for a few seconds.

“… no?”

Victoria grunted flatly.

“That’s what I thought.”

She sighed pretty heavily and slowly unstacked her head and nudged at Max again to get her looking up so they could look at each other more seriously.

Victoria bit her lip.

“It’s just – it makes everything so much harder. You get all these dumb feelings and …”

She looked away,

“… you break some hearts and …”

She looked back,

“… it’s just, so much easier to just keep things simple.”

She frowned.

“With just sex.”

Max bit her lip too, not entirely sure how to argue against this since it made complete sense.

But if the whole point was to _avoid_ the feelings, then Max had already failed miserably.

“… and if I have dumb feelings, um - anyway?”

Max’s eyes looked away.

Victoria kind of froze before sighing even more wearily and pained, kind of like a groan.

“… Max …”

Max went back to Victoria’s collarbones to nestle in there again, and exactly no parts of Victoria thought to resist since it was just such a nice feeling.

Max thought Victoria was about to say something, but she just didn’t – maybe not knowing what to, or – maybe Max had already gone too far, shit –

“Sorry, sorry – sorry …”

Victoria didn’t really respond, instead just looking distance, and Max just sat there, quietly blinking.

All the other times Max had gone too far, Victoria usually … responded poorly.

Closed off.

Got angry.

Or at least, responded _at all_.

This wasn’t that, Max didn’t know what ‘this’ even was.

But Victoria just wasn’t saying anything, totally speechless, for a while now.

Maybe even vulnerable.

Max didn’t know what to do, but it felt like this was maybe – some sort of moment.

If she hadn’t gone too far … maybe she could go farther still.

Max bit her lip and hesitated, but Victoria still hadn’t pushed her away, still hadn’t done – anything – to reject her.

Max closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of comfort from Victoria’s arms to still her thoughts and guide her forward.

“… I just want to stay, V.”

She closed her eyes and sighed contently.

“I just want you to hold me like this.”

She, somehow, mustered up the courage to kiss at Victoria’s collarbones, earning a small delighted shiver for it.

 

“… please.”

 

Victoria wanted to say no, but couldn’t.

Or did she want to say yes, but couldn’t?

Max had confirmed the worst, and Victoria knew she was at least in somewhat similar shit with how much it hurt to hear Max crying on her bed.

Logically, her brain told her to say no, to maybe even kick Max out for escalating this far, to tear the band-aid off now before it hurt too much to.

Emotionally, her heart told her to say yes, to maybe even return the little kiss, to full indulge herself in this fire that was slowly burning her.

Yet, unlike earlier, neither side of her was able to declare a decisive win here, so they both kind of did.

Victoria sighed.

“We can … try.”

Max breathed such a heavy sigh of relief, but Victoria simply grunted in response,

“But – but but but _but_.”

Max blinked.

Victoria frowned.

Despite everything that had happened tonight, she needed … _some_ sort of sanity check.

Some sort of guard rail, some sort of escape hatch.

Emotions were scary, and Victoria was heading straight towards a bunch of bullshit ones.

“This trick isn’t going to work on me twice, Max.”

She nudged her head again to get Max looking up at her appropriately and steeled her expression as such.

“If I think we’re getting in too deep – well –“

Her eyes flicked away nervously before going back,

“- promise me you won’t fucking guilt me like this if I decide to break it off.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds before Victoria’s eyes went down.

“… it’s hard enough as it is without thinking about … y’know.”

Max just didn’t know what to say.

Victoria, for like the fourth time now, had came up with an agonizing sort of deal for their relationship – a way for Max to get more of what she wanted, needed, but at a terrible cost.

And this idea that Victoria could just break it off whenever and Max couldn’t even ask her to stay?

To try and convince her to keep all of what they had built up?

It just felt so unfair.

Why did Victoria feel the need to keep doing this?

Why couldn’t she just let Max in and not assert these painful boundaries at every step of the way?

Even though Max was getting what she wanted, she still breathed uneasily against Victoria’s neck, and from the way Victoria tensed up a bit, it seemed she could tell Max’s response just like that.

Max didn’t feel like she could seriously push back against the demand – at least not in a way that would stand up to Victoria’s insistence.

But …

Maybe she could tease at the edges of her thinking.

“I …”

Max sucked in a harsh breath and tried to focus on the fact Victoria was still here, still not shoving her away, still hugging her.

“… okay, I w-won’t, but …”

She very slowly and gently worked her way up to looking at Victoria, who still looked stern, unsurprisingly, though slightly relieved at Max’s initial words.

Though Max wasn’t done.

“… do you think you’ll have to do that? Eventually?”

Her eyes went down.

“… y’know.”

Victoria sighed,

“Break it off?”

Max nodded gently.

Victoria went quiet again, thinking.

How much she could say, how much she could reveal – how much her body would physically let her, how much she was morally obligated to tell.

It just felt wrong to lie to Max and say she wasn’t going to when she knew damn well she would.

And she hated the fact that it did feel wrong, since it was just such an easy out, an easy way to end this conversation and make Max happy.

 

Fuck.

 

“It’s … a distinct possibility.”

Every syllable there was torture to get out, and the way Max just kind of melted down in defeat made Victoria hate herself even more for not being able to callously lie to her.

Even more, Max’s little ‘oh’, at once so small and fragile and crushed.

It was heart-breaking.

Victoria couldn’t help but to hug her a bit more.

“But it’s not – it’s not you.”

Max shook her head tiredly.

“… what else could it be?”

She sounded like death – fuck fuck, fuck.

 _This_ is exactly the sort of shit Victoria wanted to avoid.

Victoria sighed more forcefully, feeling a little jittery,

“Can you _just_ cut the sad girl crap for _five seconds_ , Max?”

Ugh – that was so unfair, Victoria hated herself for saying it, she hated the way Max understandably flinched and collapsed even more into herself and Victoria, even slightly unhugging her to place her hands on Victoria’s belly in that fetal-like posture again.

It was just so automatic.

But Max, indeed, did cut the sad girl crap out, at least, not saying anything further.

Victoria hesitated but slowly convinced herself saying nothing after that was probably the worst thing she could do.

 

“Just … trust me. I mean it when I say it’s not you.”

 

And Victoria did, but –

Max sighed again, deeply into Victoria’s chest.

“… so there’s nothing I - … we, could do.”

Victoria hummed flatly but didn’t think too long on it.

“No.”

Max just went quiet, and so did Victoria, while the air between them settled a bit and they both thought about the conversation that had just happened.

Victoria – some part of her – wanted to reassure Max, to find some way to lie to her that didn’t feel completely immoral and manipulative – to make her not focus on the inevitable end, which is sort of how Victoria was handling this whole thing anyway.

Max just had to wonder what it could be that was keeping Victoria from bonding with her, if it wasn’t herself, and if she could even trust what Victoria said, or it was some sort of lie to make her feel better and it was – yeah, obviously Max’s fault that this relationship seemed so doomed to her.

Eventually, Victoria just sighed and closed her eyes gently.

“Just try not to dwell on it, Max.”

She grunted a little.

“It’s what I do.”

Max nodded softly.

“… so long as I can stay.”

Victoria exhaled sharply again.

“Yes.”

Even though they were basically folded into each other, Victoria swore Max got even closer to her somehow, resting even more of herself into Victoria, wrapping her arms around to hug more intimately and more preciously somehow.

“I can try …”

She demurred, almost like a haunting whisper into Victoria’s neck.

And the affection felt so damn guilty – since it was amazing.

Max was so warm and she was so small and soft and innocent and –

Fuck.

Victoria kept her eyes closed and readjusted the sheets over them to better suit their position.

Then, she just gently nodded.

“I can too.”

Max kissed at Victoria’s neck which was – a whole other bag of worms Victoria’s tired brain didn’t even want to unpack right now – but Max then made a content sound afterwards, like some progress had been made.

 

“Okay. Good night, V.”

Victoria exhaled gently.

“Good night, Max.”

She resisted the urge to kiss the top of Max’s head.

Barely.

Fuck she was so screwed.

But all the turbulent worries about the inevitable demise of their relationship just – it was easy to not think about, maybe selfishly, maybe foolishly.

It was easy to just enjoy Max in her arms like this, and know it was something she could have … whenever, now.

Maybe not in public.

But definitely when they were alone together.

Maybe this was all inevitable from the very beginning – and maybe they’d get in even deeper, and maybe it would hurt even worse when it ended.

But it was worth it, for now.

This was worth it.

Victoria fell asleep not long after that.

Max took a bit longer, mostly because she couldn’t stop gently rubbing her nose into Victoria’s neck, able to just – feel every bit of her, every scent her body produced, every bit of warmth she had to offer.

And unlike usually, she didn’t feel like Victoria’s toy – like a thing just used for the sex and then as a body pillow afterwards – she felt like Victoria’s lover.

Maybe even her girlfriend.

Max knew Victoria just didn’t hold anyone like this, or let them kiss her, or awkwardly breathe in how she smelled.

And, like before, that golden glow, that feeling of invincibility, slowly started to return, until the bullshit fog in her mind finally cleared, and she was able to just close her eyes and sleep peacefully.

 

In the morning, Victoria didn’t kick her out.

 

Victoria went for her run and Max simply stayed in her room, a little giggly, but forbidden from snooping again, which she was able to control this time.

When Victoria finished, she helped Max pick out some clothes and they went to shower together – then dress together – then go to class together – and Max simply couldn’t be happier.

Victoria was still – reserved, guarded in public – and wasn’t a fan of Max just randomly snuggling up and kissing at her neck or something – but Max was still allowed much closer to her than anyone else in public.

 

Max wasn’t the only one to notice that, though.

 

After lunch, Taylor texted Victoria, asking if she remembered their conversation, earlier, about Max.

Victoria didn't reply.


End file.
